The Story of the Martyred Artist Abd al-Sater Fuad
In a narrow alleyway in the northern Gaza Strip, Abd al-Sater Fuad was born—a slender young man with deep, quiet eyes, carrying within his hands a trace of light in a time when light had no place. He wasn’t a soldier, nor a commander. He was an artist, a painter who portrayed Palestinian pain with a brush full of longing and turned shattered walls into murals that spoke of love and hope.
Abd al-Sater lived in a small refugee camp and studied art at a modest local center. Despite the war and destruction, he never gave up on his dream. He used to say: “Painting isn’t just a way to escape the bombing… it’s a second life we create from under the rubble.”
In his tiny room, dimly lit by a hole in the wall instead of a window, scattered drawings covered every surface—portraits of mothers, children’s eyes, homes with doves flying from their windows, even as the sky rained fire. His artworks were not for sale; they were hung on the remaining walls as if to patch together spirits that crumbled a little more each day.
As the siege and bombardment intensified and hunger spread, Abd al-Sater Fuad didn’t stay inside waiting for survival. He went out, searching among destroyed homes for bits of food—not just for himself, but for others. A neighbor once saw him enter an abandoned house, rummaging through a broken kitchen for anything edible. When he found some canned goods and stale bread, he took only a small portion, carefully returning the rest to the shelf.
The neighbor asked:
“Why don’t you take everything? No one is coming back to this house!”
He replied quietly:
“If someone comes after me, searching for food, they’ll find something. I only take what I need.
Many people are starving… and I don’t want to be part of that injustice, even if I’m hungry myself.” He was as hungry and exhausted as anyone, but he chose to remain human. He chose to leave something behind for others. To keep the door of mercy open, even in the heart of hell.This wasn’t unusual for him. Everyone who knew Abd al-Sater Fuad knew how generous, kind, and sincere he was. Even his paintings—he never kept them for himself. He gifted them to children, hung them in shelters, and painted on the walls of destroyed schools, writing: “We have the right to dream, even if dreaming is hard.”
One bleak morning, as he stood at the doorstep of his partially destroyed home, holding a small bag of food in one hand and a pencil in his back pocket… a direct missile struck him. He wasn’t holding a weapon—just a box of paints and a can of tuna.
Abd al-Sater Fuad was martyred instantly. His final breath remained in the place he had loved and painted thousands of times. The next day, when his mother returned searching for traces of him, she found his last unfinished painting—two hands reaching toward each other. Above them, in his handwriting, he had written:
“Gaza, despite everything… we will still reach out to one another.”
Today, Abd al-Sater Fuad is not just a name. He is a symbol of resistance through art, of quiet compassion, of a human who triumphed over brutality without firing a bullet. He is a message to the world, to a nation that hears of Gaza’s agony daily but does not weep, and to a humanity lost in political calculations.
Abd al-Sater Fuad was a simple man, but he lived in a way few ever do: pure, selfless, brave of heart… and a martyr.
May God have mercy on him, grant him paradise, and make his spirit an eternal painting in the memory of a wounded nation.
Alaa Alburai, Kufi Productions.
