West Bank arts festival kicks off for first time since Gaza war

A mural presumably painted by British street graffiti artist Banksy, in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, on Feb. 27, 2015. (AP / Adel Hana)

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories - Ramallah’s Contemporary Arts Festival, one of the largest in the West Bank, started on Monday for the first time since the war in Gaza shut down most cultural activities in the Israeli-occupied territory.

Art, theatre and film festivals once held in Ramallah and elsewhere in the West Bank came to a halt after October 2023, amid escalating violence, Israeli military raids and settler attacks following the outbreak of the Gaza war.

“Culture and art historically play an important and distinctive role in our struggle... because they reflect our identity and reinforce our role as a Palestinian society,” Khaled Aliyan, the festival’s director, told AFP.

Aliyan said the festival, previously limited to contemporary dance, was expanded to include Palestinian artists from all fields.

Aliyan regretted that the West Bank’s cultural life experienced “a forced two-year suspension due to the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.”

Because of the war, many organisers in the field decided to pause cultural activities out of solidarity for their fellow Palestinians living in displacement and constant danger of airstrikes.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

The festival began on Monday at Ramallah’s Cultural Palace with a showing of the musical play Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah.

Based on an Arabic poem of the same name, the play tells the story of the Banu Hilal tribe, one of the most famous Arab folk epics.

The Khashabi Theatre, a Palestinian acting company based in Haifa in northern Israel, performed the play for the first time in the Palestinian territories, after touring in Europe.

Ola Hanna, a secondary school Arabic teacher, attended the opening performance with her family from the Arab town of Rameh in northern Israel.

She said she hoped Palestinian cultural life would return to what it was before the war.

“Without music and joy, for me there is no life,” she said.

The festival will continue until July 16 and feature 48 artists and artistic groups offering audiences a mix of dance, theatre, circus performances and video art.

The festival will also host the Palestine Arts Forum, bringing together 22 artists, cultural programmers and arts institutions from 15 countries.

Art critic Youssef al-Shayeb told AFP that hosting such a large festival with a diverse programme of contemporary performing arts despite the hardships of life in the Palestinian territories was an achievement.

“Simply continuing life is, in itself, an act of resistance,” he added, pointing to settler violence, increased checkpoints and Israeli military operations in the West Bank.