This article appears in the 2015 Photo IssuePhotos by Tanya Habjouqa, from our collaboration with Magnum Photos and Magnum FoundationHabjouqa's work focuses on gender-, civil-, and human-rights issues across the Middle East. She says she tries to approach her subjects with sensitivity, but also with an eye for the absurd. These photos, which are part of a series called Occupied Pleasures, focus on the ludicrous everyday life that the 48-year occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem has created—and the beauty in spite of it, as the Palestinians refuse to let suffering define their existence.
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From a besieged Gaza where a five-minute boat ride is the epitome of freedom to a tropical studio backdrop that serves as a travel fantasy, the photos show that in humor there is often sadness and that, in Palestine, the oppressed never stop dreaming of a life full of greater possibilities. One industrious Gazan refused to be deprived of his right to love and snuck his young Jordanian bride to Egypt through smuggling tunnels. He said, "It was like a Bollywood film, her trembling, covered in Earth… I ran to her and covered her with my kisses." Habjouqa says that moment stayed with her and infused in her a desire to capture those little nuggets of happiness and light that Palestinians literally find at the end of the tunnel.
Gazan bodybuilders jovially strike poses after a workout. 2013
High school students enjoy a boat ride on the Mediterranean Sea off the Gazan coast. Gazans are not allowed to travel outside of the enclave due to the siege, so this ten minute ride must feel like the epitome of freedom. 2013