Rising From the Ruins
THE CLOWNS STOPPED JUGGLING WHEN THE dubstep blaring from nearby speakers switched to the sound of jet engines. They climbed down the pile of jagged concrete toward the throng of kids watching excitedly as recorded explosions boomed from the speakers. One of the clowns fell limp on the rubble.
The mournful Arabian flute of Yasser Farouk’s “Sad Ney” wafted from the sound system. Behind the children a row of men, mostly community leaders and local officials from Gaza City, sat in white plastic chairs facing the ruins of the Said al-Mishal Foundation for Culture and Science. The performance was a remembrance, staged on a site of devastation: Israeli warplanes had targeted and destroyed the building on Aug. 9, 2018, in response to a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip that landed near the southern Israeli city of Beersheba 30 miles away. Hamas and the Israeli military had traded hundreds of rockets and airstrikes in the preceding days, in the most severe escalation of hostilities since 2014.
The cultural center’s five stories had housed one of Gaza’s last remaining large theatre spaces, according to Ali Abu Yaseen, a director and acting coach who ran his school out of the building. Yaseen helped found ASHTAR Theatre, the group that produced in 2010. It was a
