Abstract
Lebanese artist Mazen Kerbaj’s Gaza in My Phone (2025) is a 144-page documentation of the visual record of the most recent iteration of genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza, as witnessed and circulated on social media apps like Instagram. Drawn in bold black strokes, these images pronounce the affective aspects of some of the most widely shared videos and photographs, such as the ‘video of a father carrying the remains of his son in a plastic trash bag’ (p. 10). ‘Doom-scrolling’ is replaced by slow, deliberate engagement with the image and text on the page; passive consumption of spectacular violence is supplanted by ethical, sustained, and responsible witnessing. The book’s abstract and symbolic images enable the reader to re-encounter those scenes of violation, shock, and disbelief that may have receded from visibility in their social media feeds and algorithms, as nearly a thousand days of relentless, torturous killing, and debilitation draw near. The pause created between the re-encounters opens time and space for readers to dwell in their emotions – mourning, grief, and helplessness. At the same time, through the seriality of images, Kerbaj is able to acknowledge the waves of emotions he experienced as a witness. Through these drawings, I could retrospectively notice similar ebbs of hope, change, and justice, and troughs of rage, helplessness, and desperation.
Rather than positioning himself above his readers, Kerbaj places himself alongside them, acknowledging his own limited capacities – his struggle to comprehend and articulate his feelings, and his sense of helplessness in finding sustainable ways to support Palestinians, especially from a distance. The first image of the book reads, ‘I am nothing but a peeled (and speechless) eye’ (p. 9). The shared ‘I’, which Kerbaj writes and the viewer reads, bridges the gap between the two. Even if the artist and his readers feel that their repeated demands for peace and basic human rights have been reduced to ‘nothing’ by national and international institutions, it is critical not to let this thought grow heavier; the viewers’ peeled eyes must look back at power. In a time of multiple, concurrent genocides, Kerbaj posits that active witnessing – and the actions that emerge from this reflective process – is an ethical responsibility: Hey, you, whoever you are, wherever you are, if you can talk, talk; if you can shout, shout; if you can explain, explain; if you can share, share; and if you can do absolutely nothing, do nothing, while thinking of Gaza. (p. 15)
He reminds us that, as we – the readers and Kerbaj – go about our everyday lives, an affordance that becomes evident in moments of intentional pause: ‘Gaza is being bombed’ (p. 65). By lingering over one image at a time and moving forward at one’s own pace, the reader shifts from passive participation to active ‘moving’ within themselves (Gould, 2009).
As the reader moves back and forth between the images, and becomes aware of the oscillation in their emotional responses, the act of witnessing extends from the eyes to the body, the self and the surrounding environment. By redrawing widely circulated visuals through his own subjective line, Kerbaj embodies the discomfort of looking at violence, and searches for ways to express it without further parading the inhumanity inflicted on Palestinians. Relying on minimalist, iconic symbols such as a large eye (pp. 9, 39, 125), shrouded bodies (pp. 21, 57), and coffins (pp. 11, 16), the gaze is held and the reader is invited to imagine alternative ways of returning the oppressive look: By seeing what is happening . . . by watching it on our phones . . . by not looking away when it is too harsh . . . by educating ourselves and by educating our children . . . by staying sane . . . by talking . . . by continuing to live . . . by not getting used to it . . . by not getting tired . . . by explaining, arguing, fighting with friends, family, neighbors, coworkers and acquaintances WE RESIST. (p. 89)
Sometimes these symbols become part of, or elemental to, a larger drawing, and meaning accrues between them. For instance, the big, full, blank eyes of the child who trembled in the hospital (p. 17), the hollow, shocked eyes of ‘a surviving child rescued from under the rubble’ (p. 43), and Kerbaj’s tired, disbelieving eyes witnessing the scenes as ‘Gaza and [his] brain are going up in smoke’ (p. 49). The distance between mediated and direct witnessing, and the different impact that Gazans and viewers must endure, becomes apparent. At the same time, the scenes of aggravated brutality escalate to unfathomable levels; our brains cannot process or respond to all that our eyes have been taking in, and the language that we presently have cannot contain our feelings.
Although the drawn line might seem to diversify Kerbaj’s ability to respond to violence, he repeatedly acknowledges his inability to represent traumatizing violence while remaining mindful of the risk of re-traumatization: ‘Some days I feel that I am totally empty, that I need a break’ (p. 46). Kerbaj illustrates a disjunction between his eyes, mind, and body’s responses as he compiles a Post-it list of images he ‘didn’t find the time to draw yet’: A child is having dinner with his parents, a bomb hits the apartment and kills both the parents . . . A doctor operating under the light of a smartphone . . . the silence of many friends and acquaintances . . . the unborn baby saved by the doctors from his dead mother’s womb. (p. 36)
His need for rest is repeatedly overridden by a self-imposed demand to continue witnessing: Then I think of the men and women in Gaza, the doctors, the nurses, the medics, those reporting from the ground, those driving ambulances, those searching under the rubble, those digging graves . . . and I go back to my drawing table. (p. 46)
At different points, Kerbaj also seems to mock the futility of everyday drawing and the belief that it constitutes a responsible response: ‘we watch. They die’ (p. 22), especially when these drawings are produced ‘in a safe place’ (p. 28). ‘While I am drawing Gaza is being erased’ (p. 106).
In addition to drawing and receiving images, another crucial aspect of Gaza in My Phone is its transmediality. Some of Kerbaj’s iconography has travelled from one medium to another – from social media on phone screens, to drawings on a page, to a compiled book, and to printed graphics on T-shirts, tote bags, banners, and placards, particularly at mass gatherings (pp. 18, 39, 97, 117). While the book offers an intimate glimpse into Kerbaj’s own fraught efforts to create and assemble these images (pp. 76, 78, 111), the circulation of these works disperses attention away from the singularity of his and his readers’ experiences. As these images move between contexts and surfaces, they enable viewers to carry their affective and political responses from private encounters into public spaces. It is through this border-crossing dissemination that Kerbaj’s iconography contributes to transnational solidarity. Importantly, while the book and social media archiving lend seriality to Kerbaj’s drawings – and potentially a memorized sequence for readers engaged in various forms of witnessing – transmediality reveals the expanding, circuitous relationships among visual forms, while making use of the distinct utilities and affordances of each medium.
Finally, in the afterword titled ‘My Story with Palestine’, Kerbaj presents his relationship with Palestine in words, without images. Almost confessionally, he shares anecdotes from his youth to show how his stance on Palestine has evolved. For instance, he recalls that when he was five years old, he had slapped Leyla Baalbaki, a writer and his mother’s best friend, because she was a Muslim. Unable to comprehend ‘how [his] parents had let [him] feel affection for one of [their] enemies’ (p. 134), he locked himself in his room. This response towards a Muslim’s presence can be linked to Kerbaj’s personal and cultural memory of the Lebanese civil war. ‘We all agreed on the cause of the war: the Palestinians, whose country had been stolen by the Israelis, had decided, with the help of the Muslim Lebanese, to take our country instead’ (p. 134). However, his ‘growing non-conformism’ valuably ‘made [him] question everything . . . the existence of a Palestinian cause and the need to support it, despite the disastrous involvement of the Palestinians in the Lebanese civil war’ (pp. 136–137).
Kerbaj’s vulnerable memories open communication with readers who may struggle to take a clear stand on genocidal violence, especially given their complex personal and political histories with Palestine and its governance. In the final image of Gaza in My Phone, he presents the kind of person the reader might aspire to be: ‘may you be patient . . . loving . . . brave . . . forgiving . . . determined . . . stubborn . . . defiant . . . rooted like a Palestinian’ (p. 128). Critical to this reflective collection is Kerbaj’s implicit claim that having once been a victim of politicized war cannot justify his silence, especially in moments of similar violations. His drawings and words invite readers to believe in the possibility of change, both within themselves and in the world. Embracing this possibility is not easy; one must sit with the discomfort it brings. Through vulnerable exchanges on every page, we, the readers, are prompted to examine the beliefs we may hold: where they came from, whether we have ever truly questioned them, and what we desire from this vigorous questioning. In doing so, Kerbaj shows why deliberate, reflective witnessing matters more than remaining bound to past griefs that lead us toward silence and inaction.