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

RAMALLAH: Ramallah's Contemporary Arts Festival, one of the largest in the occupied West Bank, started Monday for the first time since the war in Gaza shut down most cultural activities in the West Bank.

Khaled Aliyan, the festival's director, told AFP that the festival had returned "after a forced-two-year suspension due to the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip".

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

Art, theater and film festivals that had previously been held in Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank came to a halt amid escalating violence, Israeli military raids, and attacks by Israeli settlers after October 2023.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

"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," Aliyan added.

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

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

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

Ola Hanna attended the opening performance with her family from the Arab town of Ramleh in northern Israel.

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

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

The festival will continue until July 16, featuring 48 artists and artistic groups, including dance, theater, 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 program 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.