Under this statement, the organisation Cartooning for Peace publishes a plea for help from Safaa Odah(Twitter/ Instagram) which I translate and reproduce:
Palestinian cartoonist Safaa Odah writes to us from the Gaza Strip to ask for our help. Displaced several times by the war with her sister, she lives in a tent"in a place unfit for life" and denounces the climate of total insecurity in which she lives, as well as the constant shelling. Her words reflect the appalling tragedy suffered by Palestinian civilians. As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres noted, "Nothing can justify the abhorrent terrorist attacks of 7 October perpetrated by Hamas. And nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people".
Safaa Odah evokes the scarcity and pollution of water, the absence of electricity, cleanliness, food, medical services and medicine, and conditions that deteriorate daily in the sweltering heat. She has to travel long distances to access the internet and connect with the world by sharing her vignettes, which are a powerful testimony to the daily tragedy experienced by civilians.
"We are innocent people who don't want this war and just want to live in a safe place, in peace". Now he can no longer draw, which kills hope and inspiration.
Every effort must be made to protect journalists and media professionals wherever they are in Gaza, where more than 100 journalists have been killed since the start of one of the deadliest conflicts for the press. Cartooning for Peace calls for support and protection for Palestinian cartoonist Safaa Odah, along with her fellow journalists.
Reporters Without Borders ( RSF) insists on the need to protect reporters in Gaza: those who want to be evacuated must be evacuated and the gates of the territory must be opened to the international media.
On 11 July 2024, more than 70 international media and civil society organisations published an open letter coordinated by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), recalling the high price paid by Palestinian journalists and calling on the Israeli authorities to allow foreign media "immediate and independent access" to the besieged Gaza Strip after nine months of war.
About Safra Odah
Safaa Odah is a Palestinian cartoonist and digital artist based in Gaza who discovered her passion for drawing while studying home economics and education at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza.
During her classes, she would catch herself scribbling with a pencil in the margins of her notebook as a way to pass the time. However, drawing was no more than a hobby and, after graduating, she sought work in her field of study. Unfortunately, he was unlucky due to the Israeli blockade of Gaza and became unemployed.
Surprisingly, the lack of employment left him more time to work on his drawings and hone his skills. In 2009, he decided to pursue art seriously. Later, she made the leap from traditional pencil and paper to using a drawing tablet to create digital art. Inspired by the art of fellow Palestinian cartoonists such as Naji al-Ali, Safaa also attempts to portray the human experience through art that critiques social norms and political decisions. Source: The Palestinian Return Centre.
Safaa Odah: Gaza's besieged cartoonist turns pain into art
Text by Naser Al Wasmi published on 26 May 2018 in The Nathional.
Every night, Safaa Odah struggles with her drawings in the unreliable light of Gaza's four hours of daily electricity. Sitting at her table, she draws the atrocities she has witnessed in the besieged strip of land she calls home.
The editorial cartoonist has spent the last nine years of her life rushing to draw some of Gaza's most pressing problems, as citizens continue to resist the Israeli occupation.
Gaza has been blockaded since 2007, when the ruling Hamas party came to power, prompting Israel and Egypt to partially seal its borders.
On nights when Safaa's family obligations take longer than expected, her first pen stroke is interrupted by a sudden darkness that envelops her work, her home and the rest of the besieged Palestinian strip of land.
"That's when ideas stay in my head, sometimes for days, festering or morphing into something new," he explains.
When he finally gets them down on paper, the juxtaposition of Safaa's innocent drawing style and the gravity of the subject matter are striking.
His work almost always focuses on the realities of today's Gazans. His latest drawings suggest that he has matured, perhaps strongly, as a result of the increasingly dire state of the Gaza Strip.
"Apart from not being recognised, the situation in Gaza, it takes away any ambition or passion you have and takes it away," she said. "But I haven't once in nine years doubted what I want to do.
After nine years of little recognition, his work is beginning to be celebrated at home and abroad.
In a drawing published last week, it shows death hooded and tense, almost parallel to the ground pushing a box full of children. In the background, clouds of black smoke represent the burning tyres of the Great March of Return, in which Israelis killed more than 60 Palestinians, eight of them children.
In another sketch released earlier this month, he depicts a Palestinian mother smiling in her sleep and holding her haloed child.
Another shows paper aeroplanes arcing over an interlocking construction of the Israeli apartheid wall; it represents the difficulties Palestinians living in the West Bank have in communicating with others in their own villages behind the wall.
The issue, he says, is almost always humanitarian.
But when the issue is as polarising as the Palestinian crisis, politics almost inevitably seeps into their work.
In a drawing published in May, Safaa shows an outstretched hand in military garb handing a photo of a child to a series of bullets waiting in line.
"People take it however they want, but I stick to what I believe is a humanitarian struggle, a struggle for people to live," he said.
Her work sometimes draws the ire of conservatives. Her subject matter is not exclusive to the problems of Gaza, as she challenges preconceived ideals of Muslim femininity.
"Sometimes I feel more confident with these issues, to analyse them and try to get people to think about what they really mean," she said.
Despite the resistance she faces, Safaa continues to work steadfastly.
Safaa remembers what a professor once told her during her master's degree in psychology: everyone has talent, it's just a matter of discovering what it is.
"This is my talent, this is Safaa," she explains. "In Gaza it's hard to follow your dreams, but I think I've found myself, and I keep learning more about who Safaa is in every drawing.
