Palestinian painter Taha Hussein burns his own masterpieces to feed his children
WAR ON GAZA
6 min read
Palestinian painter Taha Hussein burns his own masterpieces to feed his childrenIn besieged Gaza, Taha Hussein Abu Ghali made a devastating sacrifice: turning his canvases into firewood to bake bread and feed his children.
“Art can be recreated. But if I lose a child, God forbid, I can’t bring them back.” / Other
17 hours ago

After years of pouring colour, memory and identity onto canvas, Taha Hussein Abu Ghali, a visual artist and researcher in art therapy, now finds himself breaking the wooden frames of his paintings, not in protest, but in desperation.

Under Israel’s months-long siege, which has left Gaza without electricity, fuel or basic supplies, art has become a currency of survival.

 In a haunting video that has gone viral, Hussein, 43, is seen dismantling his framed works, stacking the splintered wood to make a fire to cook for his children.

 “These were my most beautiful paintings, God is my witness. To me, they were like music to the heart. And now, I break them apart and burn them. Because art has turned into bread.”

Hussein shared the video on Instagram, his voice trembling as he recorded:

“We’re forced, with pain in our hearts, to burn our paintings under the shadow of this crisis. We have no fuel, no electricity, no gas, nothing. And if we’re lucky, maybe we have flour or bulgur. But there’s nothing to cook with. So, we take the wood and bake bread with it. May God help us.”

 The reaction to the post was immediate and global.

Artists, journalists and human-rights defenders shared his story. But the gesture, Hussein explains, is not a cry for pity, it is a window into a cruel reality.

“To be honest, we’re just one step away from starving to death,” he tells TRT World over the phone. “We’re still managing, scraping by with help from friends. But the humanitarian situation is extremely dangerous. We are on the edge of mass death.”

A father of five: three boys and twin girls, Hussein now lives displaced with his family in a tent in Asda City, west of Khan Younis. It is the eleventh time they have been forced to flee since the war began.

“Originally, we were from the Al-Nasr area. But we’ve moved from Rafah to Al-Aqsa University, then to empty lands, back and forth between Hamad City and other locations. Eleven times,” he says.

As he speaks of displacement, and now his burnt canvases probably on his mind, he adds: “We’ve lost everything.”

Nearly the entire population of 2.2 million is displaced, and with the death toll from air strikes nearing 60,000 and more than 143,000 injured, conditions remain dire.

Burning art to bake bread

When asked what triggered him to burn over twenty of his works, his answer is simple and stark: “One kilo of wood costs 8 shekels. And we need at least three kilos a day just to make bread or cook something small for lunch. After burning the doors, the cabinets, even the kids’ desks, the paintings were all we had left.”

His wife prepared the meal that day, using wood from the frames.

“Usually I light the fire,” he says. “But that day, I just couldn’t. She’s stronger than me. She cooked on the wood that once framed my life’s work.”

Hussein’s artistic journey began in childhood. He is a figurative surrealist who works with abstract and cubist influences and holds a degree in Art Education and Humanities and a master’s in Mental Health. He teaches arts, crafts, and Arabic calligraphy at Al-Nasr Model School and is a researcher in art therapy.

His portfolio includes visual set design for documentaries, theatre and drama productions. “I don’t follow a specific style,” he says. “I use whatever visual language serves the concept.”

Speaking of the time he took to create art, he says, “Some of these paintings took me just 30 minutes… others, six whole months. But I never sold them. I gifted them to people I loved, people I respected.”

His studio in Gaza, once a sanctuary, is now destroyed.

He had scattered his paintings across different locations to protect them “so if one place was bombed, something might survive.”

But as Gaza burns, so do the last remains of beauty, memory and meaning.

He contemplates on the word “burning” and adds: That was never their fate. That was never the end I imagined for them. But now, I have no choice, we need wood just to bake bread.

Their meals now consist of whatever is cheapest and available.

“Eggplants,” he says. “Roasted, boiled, mashed, we’re so tired of it, but it’s all we can afford. Sometimes lentils. Sometimes rice, if we’re lucky. There are no vegetables. No fruit. The children’s skin has darkened under the sun. Hunger has changed their faces.”

“This is what art has come to, a loaf of bread,” he says. “Beauty burns. And children eat what remains.”

World’s disproportionate reaction

In a second Instagram post, Hussein reflected bitterly on the world’s reaction:

“The world reacted to some of the boards I broke to cook food… I’ve seen martyrs scattered on the ground, wounded people crying out for help, and no one reacted.”

His words struck a chord because they reflect a broader grief and emotional numbness spreading across Gaza. In a place where dreams are buried beneath rubble, Hussein’s act is both a symbol of despair and defiance.

“We are facing genocide,” he says. “This famine feels like part of a calculated plan to push us out to make life so impossible that we are forced to flee.”

And yet, he remains rooted to the soil. A man who has lost almost everything but not his voice. Not his will to protect his children. Not the power of art to speak when the world falls silent.

“When I tore my paintings, many offered to buy them. I’ve been moving these works for over twenty years, like a mother cat carrying her kittens in fear. I wish I didn’t just burn my paintings but I could burn myself and leave this dirty and eternal world.”

More than 100 aid groups, including MSF and Oxfam, warned this week of “mass starvation” in Gaza, adding that the people they serve were “wasting away.” 

WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said a large part of the population is starving, calling it “man-made.”

Israel denies causing famine, blaming Hamas for shortages. But Gaza officials report at least 113 starvation deaths, mostly children.

Despite the trauma, Hussein does not regret the sacrifice of consigning his life’s work to flames. “Art can be recreated. But if I lose a child, God forbid, I can’t bring them back.”

SOURCE:TRT World
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