We invite all who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people to join Pal Awda and the Palestinian Feminist Collective for an immersive Virtual Reality memorial experience, offering a first-hand view of Gaza as documented by Gazan artists and journalists.

Since 2022, the Phoenix of Gaza team has been capturing 360-degree images and videos across Gaza, documenting daily life, historic landmarks, cultural sites, schools, mosques, churches, universities, cafes, streets, parks, markets, beaches, agricultural areas, and so much more. This is in addition to weddings, stitching workshops, dabke, palm harvesting, clay and pottery making, and immersive exhibitions of the work of Gazan artists. Many of the places captured no longer exist, erased by the ongoing genocide. But these images and videos remain within these headsets as an archive of cultural memory, resistance, and life, and a blueprint for rebuilding and return. 

The Phoenix of Gaza XR Project is stewarded by Palestinian founders and co-directors Naim Aburaddi and Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb, and all of its content has been captured by Gazan journalists Ahmad Hasaballah and Yahya Sobeih, both before and during this ongoing genocide.. The project was first conceived by Naim Aburaddi who is from Gaza City but had not been able to visit his family there since he left in 2014. It is critical that this project is held and shaped by Palestinians. Naim sought to bring Gaza to the world since the world couldn’t get to Gaza due to the decades long seige and now ongoing genocide. Many Palestinians in ‘48, the West Bank, and in the diaspora have never been able to visit Gaza, and and this project is a portal for Palestinians and the world to a Gaza that the siege and genocide have tried to erase. 

As the violence escalated, this project took on urgent meaning. It offers a vital feminist intervention: a visual testimony to the everyday lives of Palestinians before the siege, including weddings, tatreez workshops, palm harvesting, and clay making. These moments reflect the often-erased labor of women in preserving cultural practices, nourishing families, and sustaining life even under siege. In Gaza, reproduction and care have become radical acts of resistance, even as Israel’s warfare deliberately targets the conditions of life itself, cutting off baby formula, forcing cesarean sections without anesthesia, and weaponizing starvation as a form of reproductive genocide.

This exhibition is held in loving memory of Yahya Sobeih, a courageous Palestinian photojournalist and dedicated member of the Phoenix of Gaza XR Project who was martyred on May 7th by a Zionist Entity-American airstrike on a restaurant. Yahya risked his life to document the brutal realities unfolding on the ground, giving the world a glimpse into the resilience and steadfastness of the Gazan people amid unimaginable loss. Now, we are fundraising for Yahya’s wife Amal, and her three children, as they are struggling to survive in Gaza under forced starvation and constant bombardment. The gendered violence of genocide is apparent and it is critical we take action to support Amal and her children. Yahya and Amal's story is not unique as over 60,000 people have been martyred by the Zionist Entity in the last two years, and 85% of the people in Gaza are in the fifth and final stage of this current manmade starvation.

You’ll see Gaza through Yahya's and other Gazan journalists' eyes and experience what they captured using VR glasses. This is more than a memorial—it’s a refusal to let Gaza be erased. 

EVENT DETAILS:

If you are unable to attend but still would like to donate and read about Yahya and his family, please click on link here: https://chuffed.org/project/help-yahya-sobeihs-wife-and-kids

To receive updates on future Pal Awda actions and programming, follow us @palawda on Instagram.
To receive updates on future PFC events and programming, email us at pfc-nyc@proton.me.

If you're interested in learning more about the Phoenix of Gaza XR project, please email us at info@gazaxr.com or check out our website https://gazaxr.com/.