Protective Edge: Gaza 2014

photographs and text by Alessio Romenzi

April 1st - 15th July 2017

Operation Protective Edge; the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The stated aim of the Israeli operation was to stop rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, which increased after an Israeli crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank was launched following the June 12th kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by two Hamas members. Conversely, Hamas's goal was to bring international pressure to bear to lift Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, end Israel's offensive, obtain a third party to monitor and guarantee compliance with a ceasefire, release Palestinian prisoners and overcome its political isolation. Some claim Israel was the first, on June 13th, to break the ceasefire agreement with Hamas that had been in place since November 2012. However, Israel argues its air raids on Gaza are responses to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

Rafah: July 11 - A donkey pulls a cart through Rafah as four rockets are fired from the city into Israel. Rafah is home to 152,950 Palestinians the overwhelming majority is made up of Palestinian refugees.

Alessio Romenzi

Alessio Romenzi (b.1974) was raised in a small village in the Italian Apennines and previously worked as refrigeration technician and also a blacksmith.

He later decided to base himself in the Middle East, covering the so-called Arab Spring from the beginning, with a special focus on Egypt and Libya. Later his interests moved to Syria, Alessio was one of the first photographers to be smuggled inside the country when the regime of Bashar al-Assad began increasing the firepower against the opposition and denied entry to journalists.

His images appear regularly in the major international magazines and are used by international humanitarian organizations.

When asked about the motives underlying his work, he never has anything conclusive to say. He simply states that the camera is the best way he has to document what is going on in the world.