Asim Rafiqui, Pakistan

The Inconsolable

As I walk through a devastated Gaza in the aftermath of Israel's Operation Cast Lead, I am struck by how familiar it all looks. The scale is different but the visible consequences are the same - dead bodies and lost lives; destroyed homes and displaced families; hysterical funerals and their political exploitation; protest marches and weapon-wielding men promising revenge; torn farmlands and families trying to salvage anything that remains. The first time I came to Gaza was in 2003 and I returned and continued to document the situation here over the next three years. The settlements were still in Gaza then, and so were activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Rachel Corrie was still alive, armored bulldozers and accompanying tanks were still constructing the massive steel wall dividing Rafah from Israel and Egypt, home demolitions were frequent, and so was frequent firing into civilian neighborhoods resulting in the death and maiming of residents.

As a photographer I documented my fair share of funerals, protest marches and families salvaging their belongings from the ruins of their destroyed houses. And now in 2009 as I stand surrounded by yet more devastation of Gaza's lives and infrastructure, I can't help but feel that I have seen all this before and that in the very near future I will be here again and live this moment again. The cycle repeats itself. The images repeat themselves. We keep making pictures, but affect nothing, change nothing. My cameras feel useless, my eye tired. As I walk through the remains of Gaza's shattered lives, I find myself walking into memories from which there seems no escape.