This visual and narrative journey is part of a project supported by the Fundación Al Fanar, which spotlights new voices in contemporary Palestinian comics. Through this selection of pieces, we get a glimpse into a graphic universe where the cartoon strips not only tell personal, family or symbolic stories, but also directly challenge the prevailing imagery of Palestine and the Mediterranean itself.
Contrary to the myth of the Mare Nostrum as the cradle of civilisations, a bridge of cultures, and a space of harmony − an image so often repeated as an instrument of power and erasure −, these comics reveal its fractures, its absences, and the silenced struggles of a people who insist on drawing their place on the map. From Gaza to Chicago, from Jerusalem to the refugee camps in Lebanon, the artists brought together here transform graphic language into a form of resistance, an emotional archive, and an affirmation of existence.
Far from the passivity of memory or the nostalgia of loss, these strips are living, active interventions that question imposed oblivion, and call for another Mediterranean: one that recognises complexity, structural violence and displaced memories. The ink here is not decorative, but rather condemns, evokes and constructs. A fragmentary and rebellious mapping that opposes the hegemonic narrative of silence.
Rewriting the Narrative through the Comic Strip
The image of Palestine has been carved into the global imaginaries through bombs, blood and destruction. In this dominant discourse, which has persisted for more than 75 years, Palestinian voices have been systematically marginalised. Through comics, considered a lesser art form for years, Palestinian artists have managed to break the imposed silence, changing colonial representations through their own lines. Edward Said reminded us that to deny someone a voice is to deny their existence. These graphic works are not merely passive remembrances: they are active interventions, acts of resistance against historical amnesia.
Myths and Counter-Myths of the Mediterranean
In the symbolic mapping of the Mediterranean, Palestine is often omitted: too eastern for the European South, too fragmented for grand narratives. However, the artists featured put Palestine at the heart of the Mediterranean imaginary, not as a wound bleeding in the margins but as a central part of its history: the cradle of cultures, exiles and resistance. Contrary to the myth of a harmonious, frictionless Mediterranean, these comics bring back the fissures, the expulsions, the returns, and the voices buried beneath the noise of media violence.
The Everyday Body: Architecture, Intimacy, Survival
Dania Omari, architect and author of I Feel Fortunate (2024), tells from Jerusalem her experience as a young Palestinian woman, amid inherited privileges and less visible wounds. Her architectural lines transfer to the comic the arrangement of the space as a reflection of the conflict: internal borders, symbolic displacements, and intimacy under surveillance. As in ancient myths where the gods descended to the mortal world, in Dania’s work the myth of Palestine is embodied in everyday gestures.
Sara Shehadeh, also an architect, in The Tastiest Coffee, transforms routine into an act of protest. Beit Eksa, the village of her roots, appears as a symbolic centre of a Palestine that refuses to disappear.
The Geography of Uprooting: Exiles, Borders, Returns
Leila Abdelrazaq, with her graphic novel Baddawi, traces a genealogy of Palestinian exile from Lebanon. Through the story of her father, Ahmad, Leila depicts not only life in a refugee camp but also the right to tell its story. It is a foundational text of modern Palestinian comics.
Hamza AbuAyyash, with Dal-l (2023), embodies the Palestinian nomadic identity. Born in Lebanon, with a childhood spent in both Tunisia and Jordan, and trained in Nablus, he creates a Palestinian superheroine of the future, combining science fiction and political comics. This is a commitment to imagining another possible Palestine, without losing the memory of displacement.
Shahd Alshamaly, born in the Emirates but rooted in Gaza, depicts the traumatic legacy of the Nakba in It Wasn’t a Dream. Her direct style translates the harshness of reality into graphic narration through the bodies and faces of those who experience it.
History as Resistance: Archive, Testimony, Memory
Mohammad Sabaaneh, in I’m Not Leaving. My History of Palestine, makes each line a visual archive of oppression. His raw, expressionist style captures collective pain. His mural painting at the UN, Guernica of Gaza, and his recent book, 30 Seconds in Gaza (2024), positions him as one of the most powerful visual chroniclers of his generation.
Khaled Jarrada, born in Gaza, sculpts in Attack on Gaza an emotional chronicle from an expressive and corporal perspective. The psychological power of his images reinterprets the classic role of the artist in contexts of war.
Samir Harb, architect and cartoonist, with Protests of Jerusalem, offers a spatial interpretation of the conflict: borders are not just walls but also paths, objects and squares. His comic is a critical geography in strips, dismantling the structures of colonial power in the urban space.
Futures and Subjectivities: Identities in Transition
Iasmin Omar Ata, under the pseudonym Delta, in Rose Metal and in her novel Nayra and the Djinn (2025), explores themes of identity, sickness, religious discrimination, and self-improvement. Her dreamlike and colourful aesthetic uses a healing visual language that combines mythology, science fiction and condemnation.
Hassan Manasrah and Shaden Abu Al Haija present What is Palestine for Me?, a family story that could be the story of millions. Through the experience of Shaden’s father, the strip becomes a space for intergenerational transmission, like the myths passed down from grandparents to grandchildren.
Drawing to Avoid Disappearing
These comics are not just art; they are affirmations of existence. They are the recovery of a real, complex Mediterranean, filled with exiles, memories and struggles. Through their strips, Palestinian artists rewrite their history in the first person, demanding to be seen, heard and read. And they do so with an ink that persists, never fades, and draws futures where Palestine ceases to be a myth and once again becomes land, life and culture.