Hands Tell Stories | Belal Khaled

Khaled wore a mask at all times because the scent of death was everywhere. He worked daily from a space no larger than two metres across – barely enough to sleep in – but it became the base for a documentary project about life in its most fragile form.

This series presents different moments of war through the language of hands. Each image captures a separate human experience, but together they form a visual sequence that reflects the journey from loss to the will to live.

In photographs taken over the course of more than 185 consecutive days of coverage, Khaled’s lens depicts the hand as storyteller: hands fighting to survive, hands that – through their scars, their stillness, their grip on life – tell stories no voice could carry.

Focusing on the intricate details of these hands, he documented the hand that was a father’s last touch with his son, the hand that searched desperately for survivors beneath the rubble, the hand that embodied hope and the will to live and the hand that provided safety and reassurance in moments of despair. He captured the hand that offered joy despite overwhelming pain, as well as those that are now still forever.

He portrayed the hand that clung to warmth in the bitter cold of winter and the hand that fought for dignity and survival.

During one assignment, his hand was injured while he was covering the aftermath of the bombing of a house. He wrapped the wound with a piece of fabric from inside the same home. What frightened Khaled most was the thought of losing movement – losing his connection to the camera.

At that moment, he realised the hand is not just a professional tool. It is an extension of identity and memory. From then on, the hand was no longer simply a subject of documentation, but a central thread in a larger story about people living through war.

The images tell a collective narrative through individual details, making the hand a visual anchor for understanding reality. Each hand carries a meaning of survival, absence and the fragile persistence of life.

And each hand, like each story, is unlike any other.