The Palestinian artist Dorgham Quraiqi was killed by Israeli airstrikes on the Shuja’iya neighbourhood of Gaza City, The Art Newspaper reports. He was sheltering alongside his wife and brothers, also killed in the attack, when the strike hit the ruins of their home.
The Israeli airstrikes that took Quraiqi’s life on 18 March were part of the latest wave of deadly attacks on Gaza that have voided the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas in January.
A self-taught artist, Quraiqi’s work was primarily in figurative oil painting, exhibited widely in Gaza before the war. He was preparing for a solo exhibition at Shababeek for Contemporary Art, destroyed by Israel in April 2024. Quraiqi turned his focus to community work, supporting Palestinian children through education and trauma relief alongside the UK-based charity Hope and Play.
‘Despite losing his home, being displaced many times and countless of other great dangers and challenges, we have seen Dorgham bringing smiles to the faces of many thousands of displaced children over the last 1,5 years. His traveling cinema, swimming pools and theatre shows have given relief to so many and his energy and motivation seemed endless,’ the organisation said in a statement.
‘There are these incredible people, like Dorgham, who were willing to risk their own lives to help their communities and sort of alleviate a little bit of suffering for a short while,’ a trustee of the charity told The Art Newspaper. ‘Even in the middle of everything going on, there is huge creativity, there’s huge generosity of spirit.’
