Qatar art installation sheds light on Gaza’s children killed by Israel

Doha, Qatar – An art installation featuring more than 15,000 small teddy bear sculptures, each representing a child’s life lost during Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, has been unveiled in the Qatari capital Doha.

The teddy bears dressed in black t-shirts emblazoned with the message “I’m not just a number. I’m human. With an identity. With a homeland. I am Palestine. #Free Palestine” line up the pavement at Barahat Msheireb in Msheireb Downtown Doha.

The art installation titled Echo of Lost Innocence is part of the initiative to bring attention to the brutality of war and to what Palestinians, especially children, have gone through in the past 11 months.

Israel has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, since it launched its devastating war on October 7. Israel’s war came after Hamas and other Palestinian factions carried out an attack inside Israel, which led to at least 1,100 deaths. Campaigners have dubbed Israel’s military offensive as a war of vengeance, as Israeli forces have targeted Palestinian civilians in often indiscriminate attacks. The widescale devastation and human toll have caused a global outrage and protests calling for a ceasefire.

The installation will be on display between September 16-26. Each teddy bear will be sold, with 100 percent of the proceeds donated to the children of Gaza.

“This installation serves as a reminder to the international community to work harder towards achieving a ceasefire in Gaza and restoring hope for the children of Palestine,” said Bachir Mohammad, the 40-year-old Lebanese artist who created the installation.

Born in Kuwait, Bachir and his family were forced to move to Lebanon during the Gulf War in 1990, where he lived through the 1996 and 2006 wars between Israel and Hezbollah.

“When I began this project, the number of lost children was less than 4,000. However, today the figure exceeds 15,000 and continues to rise,” he said. “Each teddy bear in the installation represents a child who has been lost and is encased in a concrete block, symbolising the destruction caused by Israeli strikes.”

An Italian man, who works in Qatar, said visualising the number of children killed through these teddy bears is heartbreaking.

“When my children saw all these toys encased in concrete blocks, I had to explain to them that they represent children that died. They have to know that war brings only death and destruction. I hope they will understand the complexity of such conflicts when they grow up, but for now they have to know that war will never achieve anything good,” he told Al Jazeera wishing to remain anonymous.

“We have to donate something, we have to do all we can to help.”