Belal Khaled Hands Tell Stories
Untitled, 2023
Series
After his home was destroyed during the war, Khaled was staying in a tent outside the morgue at Nasser Hospital. The tent overlooked an area where bodies were being gathered after the morgue reached full capacity.
Surrounded by the smell of death and the sound of drones, Khaled began documenting hands. Through their scars, their stillness, their grip on life, they told stories no voice could carry. He documented the hand that was a father’s last touch with his son, the hand that searched desperately for survivors beneath the rubble, and the hand that offered joy despite overwhelming pain, as well as those that are now still forever.
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.
About the photographer
Khan Younis, Gaza, Palestine, 1992
Palestinian
Doha, Qatar
About Belal Khaled
Khaled is an artist and war photographer whose work sheds light on human suffering in the face of wars, conflicts and other disasters. He grew up in refugee camps in Gaza, where his creative vision was shaped by the Palestinian cause and the experience of displacement, leading him to dedicate his work to documenting the struggles of refugees around the world and amplifying the voices of the marginalised through his images and art.
He has covered numerous wars and conflicts from Gaza to Syria and Azerbaijan as well as humanitarian crises in Syria and Turkey.
Khaled's work has been exhibited in more than a dozen countries, including at the Faces of Gaza exhibition, Nancy, France (2014); P21 Gallery, London (2014); the D’Reesha Arts Festival, Doha (2022) and Palestine Museum US in Woodbridge, Connecticut (2024).
UNESCO showcased his art at its Paris headquarters to celebrate World Arabic Language Day in 2021 and Google displayed some of his work at the entrance to its offices in Paris in 2023. He has appeared as a speaker on TED Arabic and his work has been published internationally, including in Time, The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal and on Al Jazeera.