‘The missiles will not erase Dergham’s mark on our hearts’
Dergham Quraiqi, artist and activity leader, was killed in an Israeli air strike on his house overnight on Tuesday 18 March. This piece is edited from a report in Art Newspaper.
Dergham Quraiqi, a newly married 28-year-old Palestinian artist working with Hope and Play, was killed alongside his wife and brothers when Israeli airstrikes hit the ruins of their home in Gaza City’s Shuja’iya neighbourhood, where they were sheltering.
The couple and their relatives were killed in the early hours of 18 March as Israel launched intense surprise bombardments across Gaza, shattering a two-month ceasefire.
Despite facing difficulties and displacement, he is remembered by friends and colleagues as an artist who helped others and inspired hope. His figurative oil paintings were widely exhibited in Gaza and showed much talent. He volunteered at the Dar Al-Kalima University run Gaza Training Center where he helped implement a group mural in 2022, depicting journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, killed by the IDF in 2022.
Saskia Marsh, Hope and Play trustee, says:
“It’s a heavy blow to everybody who had interactions with Dergham and knew him and knew his work.”
“Dergham started working with us in June 2024 and was one of ten artists working through Shababeek Centre for Contemporary Art, helping children escape the horrors of war by expressing themselves through art. Dergham said this was helping children to ‘paint your emotions away.'”
“There are these incredible people, like Dergham, who were willing to risk their own lives to help their communities and alleviate a little bit of suffering for a short while,” she says. “Even in the middle of everything going on, there is huge creativity, there’s huge generosity of spirit.”
“All of this should not be in vain. All these deaths should not be in vain. Dergham believed that the only way out of this is creative expression, freedom, and security and dignity for everybody, Israelis and Palestinians alike. So let’s focus on how we get there.”
One of Dergham’s workshops gathered an entire displacement camp to create a collage: “This is an opportunity for participants to express their soul, their love for Palestine, to mourn the loss of their homes and to reflect on what remains of their dreams.”
Such terrible news
I would love to send a donation in his memory
Unfortunately the donation form keeps rejecting my date of birth as incorrect
So I can’t proceed
Is there another way to donate ?
I am so very sorry to hear this awful news. Dergham must have been a wonderful inspiration to the children, creatively and as a role model of how to live with adversity. He will never be forgotten and a tiny comfort for you all – he is with his love still. I am sending you all love and my condolences – bless you all.
Hi David, and thank you so much for your words of consolation and attempts to donate in his memory. If you scroll down the donation page (https://hopeandplay.org/donate/), there are other ways to pay, including PayPal if easier. I’ll contact you directly to help.
Thank you again for your support and your kind words