The “Whirlwind” project by Gaston Zvi Ickowicz (b. 1974) was created in a series of visits by the artist to the northern part of the “Gaza Envelope” area between March and October 2018. That period saw the beginning of a new stage in the struggle by the residents of the Gaza Strip against the Israeli siege of the area: tens of thousands of people took part in “marches of return” and demonstrations near the fence, in which Palestinian kites and balloons carrying flammable materials were released toward the Israeli side of the fence. After preliminary tours of the area, Ickowicz began photographing lands that had been set on fire by these burning kites near the kibbutzim Or Haner and Gvar’am, and the ruins of the Palestinian villages of Simsim, Najd and Al-Mansurah.

Gaston Zvi Ickowicz, Whirlwind, 2018, archival pigment print, 26×39 cm