Baby Jesus in incubator: a tribute to Gazan children

STORY: Rana Bishara said she wanted to deliver a message of peace. “My message here: to stop the war, first of all, stop the war now,” she said, adding that if Jesus was born that night, he would be dead because of the ongoing war.

Bishara explained that the baby figure was lying on a mat of cactus “because cactus is the symbol of Palestine, and the symbol of 531 villages and towns, they were depopulated, and bombed in 1948, where one of the villages was my village.”

Christmas celebrations in the region were subdued this year, under the shadow of the war and as Israeli forces launched their biggest assault on Gaza since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7.

Bishara said her art installation is to honor the premature Gazan babies who were left behind with only five doctors and some nurses, when the Al Shifa hospital was evacuated. The health ministry said then that eight premature babies had died in Al Shifa due to lack of power and medicines.