From the series Bethlehem and Ramallah, April 2002, 2002
C-prints
ΕΜΣΤ Collection
Acquired 2004
In the series Bethlehem and Ramallah, April 2002, Emily Jacir captures the widespread destruction in the occupied West Bank following the IDF’s Operation Defensive Shield. Launched during the Second Intifada (Spring 2002), it marked the largest military action in the region since the Arab–Israeli (Six-Day) War of 1967. The operation began with an Israeli incursion into Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat was placed under siege in his headquarters. Subsequently, from 2 April to 10 May 2002, Israeli troops besieged the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, targeting suspected Palestinian militants who had taken refuge there. Jacir’s lens records Israeli soldiers in Bethlehem during the operation, as well as destroyed offices, classrooms, banks, commercial shops, and other sites.
During the operation, the IDF surrounded the Church of the Nativity, besieging armed Palestinians, approximately 200 monks, and civilians. Although, according to Israeli sources, the monks and civilians were being held hostage, the Franciscan Order denied these allegations. After 39 days, an agreement was reached: the armed Palestinians inside the Church surrendered to Israel and were exiled to Europe and the Gaza Strip. Emily Jacir’s work explores themes of transformation, translation, resistance, and silenced histories. She employs a wide range of media and methodologies—film, video, photography, sculpture, installations, performance, and archival research—to explore how personal and collective movement within the public sphere shapes the physical and social experience of trans-Mediterranean space and time.
Emily Jacir was born in 1972 in Bethlehem. She lives and works between Rome and Ramallah.
