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On January 26, 2023, Israeli soldiers, hiding in the cargo hold of a milk truck, entered the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, where Magnum photographer Sakir Khader was about to head to his grandmother's home in Nablus.
Khader’s recent photo series, “Dying to Exist,” begins with a narrative of what happened next. A WhatsApp conversation between Khader and a friend helps piece together the events of those hours as he experienced them:
6:23 a.m.: An alarm sounds in the camp and clashes begin between Israeli soldiers and local residents.
7:40am: Bullets fly past.
8:13: The boy is shot dead in front of Khader. His body lies in the street, and snipers shoot at anyone who tries to take it.
9:47am: Drones fly overhead.
10:58: Attack helicopters circle the sky as Israeli forces fire rockets at the house.
11:14: According to official figures, ten people have died.
While he was texting his friend, Khader was taking photographs. The images in Khader’s book are drawn from his archive and new photographs taken in 2019, 2023, and 2024, and are part of an ongoing series of photographs taken in Palestine. Images of massacres in Gaza have been a source of public concern for the past two years; Khader shows life in close proximity to more subtle forms of violence in the West Bank, which have recently become more frequent and intense. “I imagine the occupation,” he told me.
Mourners gather around the body of a man in Jenin; his headband is one of those worn by members of the Jenin Brigades, a local militia. September 2023
A man rides a horse. Jenin, Palestine, 2024.
Sourse: newyorker.com
