The only grand piano in the Gaza Strip was played in public for the first time in a decade, following a complicated international restoration effort to fix the instrument after it was nearly destroyed in an Israeli airstrike.
About 300 people attended the performance on Sunday, staring in awed silence as Japanese and local artists performed for them. For many, it was the first time they had ever heard a piano performed live.
“Playing this piano is feeling like playing history,” Japanese pianist Kaoru Imahigashi said. “It’s amazing. I felt the prayer of peace for many people.”
The piano’s story goes back many years, mirroring in many ways the story of Gaza.
The Japanese government donated the piano about 20 years ago, following interim peace accords between Israel and Palestine. At the time, Gaza was envisioned as becoming the Singapore of the Middle East.
Palestinian Ministry of Culture official Fayez Sersawi said he was responsible for receiving the piano, which was placed at a large theater in the newly built al-Nawras resort in northern Gaza.
He said music festivals were a regular activity before the beginning of the second Palestinian uprising against Israel in 2000.
In 2007, the resort closed the theater and the swimming pool and scaled down most activities after Hamas, a Muslim militant group, took control of Gaza by force after winning legislative elections.
Under Hamas’ rule, many forms of public entertainment, including bars, movie theaters and concert halls, have been shuttered.
An ensuing Israeli-Egyptian blockade, meant to weaken Hamas, and severe damage after a three-week war with Israel in January 2009 closed the resort altogether.
The piano was silenced and sat unused until 2014, when an Israeli airstrike during a third war with Hamas destroyed al-Nawras hall. The piano was found unscathed, but rickety and unplayable.
After the piano was discovered, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, which sponsors development programs in Gaza, got involved.
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that a piano was donated to the Palestinian Authority in 1998. Workers from the cooperation agency took the serial number and contacted Yamaha, its producer. The company confirmed that the instrument had been manufactured in 1997 or 1998.
“Everything matched,” said Yuko Mitzui, a representative of the cooperation agency.
On Sunday, the rapt audience listened eagerly and clapped at the end of each performance.
Imahigashi stroked the keys smoothly as opera singer Fujiko Hirai performed the Japanese folk song Fantasy on Sakura Sakura.
It was the first time that Yasmin Elian, 22, attended a piano concert.
“I liked how people interacted” with the artists, she said. “This encourages me to learn piano.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was