Daybreak in Gaza

Katherine Pangonis

WRITTEN IN FABRIC: NIVEEN MOSLEH, IBRAHIM MUHTADI AND MARY KAWAR ON EMBROIDERY

The history of Gaza is written in fabric, in dark silks banded with colour, fine cotton gauzes and heavy linens dyed deepest indigo and embroidered with cypress trees. Gaza's textiles hold a record of individual creativity and collective identity dating back centuries. More than this, in the samples of tatreez - traditional Palestinian embroidery - we find the legacy of women, so often written out of history, who have stitched the proof of their talent and their resistance into cloth.

The origins of this art form can be traced back three thousand years. 'Tatreez is a messenger for all Palestinian people. It is our history, our present and our future. It promotes our culture and tells our story [inside and] outside Palestine. There is a strong link between this art and our identity,' says the Gaza-based designer and textile historian Ibrahim Muhtadi. The image of a woman wearing tatreez has become symbolic of the connection between Palestinians and Palestine. It evokes memories of communities living simply on the land, dyeing their fabrics with bright carmine from cochineal insects and rich blues from indigo plants, embroidering their identity onto their clothing. Silks and linens, prized since antiquity, were produced by skilled artisans, both female and male, in three stages: weaving the cloth on traditional treadle looms, dyeing it and finally embroidering it.

Gaza's a?nity for weaving persisted through conquest and reconquest. A Latin Glossarium from 1678 by French philologist Charles du Fresne du Cange suggested that gazzatum - meaning a finely woven fabric of linen or silk threads, called gaze in French and gauze in English - was derived from the place name of Gaza, from where it was thought to have originated. This may be the earliest such reference, though an older derivation is certainly believable. Different places in Palestine often had their own products named after the locality. A special type of knotted binding stitch favoured in Gaza is still known in Arabic as manjal ghazzawi - 'Gazan sickle stitch'.

From the mid-nineteenth century, most textiles in Gaza were woven from cotton, linen and silk imported from Egypt or Syria. However, weaving also used local yarns, with Palestinian cotton becoming an important export to Europe. Gauze was also widely made, for head coverings as well as medical purposes.

By the twentieth century, Gaza and neighbouring Majdal were the largest weaving centres in Palestine, hosting hundreds of treadle looms. But the Nakba saw Majdal depopulated and erased by what is now the Israeli city of Ashkelon, its weaving facilities abandoned in the hurried escape. Many of its artisans found safety in Gaza's refugee camps, where they set up new looms. Their Majdalawi fabric lives on, incorporating black and indigo cotton threads banded by strips of turquoise and fuchsia representing heaven and hell.

The most widely used colour for fabric dyeing in Gaza was blue, derived from indigo. It was common for customers to take undyed cloth to the dyers, who would soak it to increase the intensity of the hue. Ethnographer Shelagh Weir has noted that light blue was cheaper: it required less work. The darker the shade, the richer the wearer. Next most important was red, achieved using pigments from madder plants, kermes insects and cochineal. Vivid pinks became emblematic of Gazan costume.

Palestinian embroidery is known for its richness of cross-stitch. Embroiderers arrange intricate motifs on the chest panel, sleeves and skirt of a thobe, the traditional long-sleeved, ankle-length dress. Many illustrate Palestine's natural environment - cypress or orange blossoms - while some have cultural roots, such as the eight-pointed star, and others are everyday objects: an amulet or even chicken's feet. There are hundreds of combinations. In Gaza a thobe may be embroidered with an intricate chest panel known as a 'Gaza necklace' that functions like costume jewellery, stitched in bright colours around the neckline. Art historian Rachel Dedman has written that these 'necklaces' are held to have totemic, even protective qualities. Variations in pattern and colour indicate the wearer's social and marital status, including stylised motifs of heaven and hell.

Mary Kawar, director of Amman's Tiraz Centre - showcase for the uniquely comprehensive textile collection of her mother, Widad, born in Tulkarem in 1931 - emphasises how tatreez demonstrates the sophistication of pre-Nakba Palestine: 'If you look at all these dresses, the richness, the skills, the innovation, the creativity and the trade and the economy involved in creating them, this was a society that was stable, that had economic means and a role for women. Women had their dowry stitched in coins on their headdresses, which no one could take, at a time when European women could not open a bank account. This reveals a narrative completely [counter] to what is said of Palestinians. You cannot have this embroidery heritage without a society that was thriving. You cannot be innovative and creative and have all this taste and skill if you [live hand to mouth]. Tatreez is not about the result, it's about the process. It proves women had time to create luxury items.' To this day, many families keep a pre-1948 thobe as a treasured heirloom, serving - as keys to abandoned homes also do - as proof of identity, evidence of linkage to a specific locality and symbol of a right to lost land.

Gazan women embroidering garments in 1967 (left) and 2022 (right).

As conditions deteriorated after 1948, access to materials and dyes tightened and trade in high-quality textiles dipped. But tatreez blossomed in new ways. Historically, textile art had been highly specific: individual villages would have their own styles. Gazan girls would grow up embroidering their wedding gown and the items of their trousseau, sewing the markers of their identity. Women from different parts of Palestine would have no need to ask after each other's origins, since the evidence would be encoded in their clothing. But the Nakba's upheavals loosened the practice of embroidering village-specific motifs, introducing 'camp dresses' that blended the styles of women from different regions who suddenly found themselves living side by side in refugee camps.

In 1950, UNRWA established the Sulafa embroidery project as a way for Gaza's refugee women to generate their own income. It has grown to become a non-profit enterprise selling jackets, cushion covers, bags and phone cases worldwide via partner outlets. 'The goal is to support vulnerable women and promote Palestinian heritage,' says director Niveen Mosleh.

Niveen, originally from Beit Daras village near Majdal, destroyed in 1948, describes how her grandmother used to visit her family every week, preparing maftoul. 'Then she would embroider. I would follow the movement of her fingers and how she transformed pieces of Majdalawi cloth into a beautiful dress.'

During the First Intifada (1987-93), tatreez shifted again. Women began to sew images of national pride. When Israel banned the Palestinian flag, embroiderers replaced traditional turquoises and fuchsias with the flag's red, green, white and black. Flowers and birds gave way to maps of historic Palestine. 'Women embroidered the names of cities and the walls of Jerusalem,' says Niveen. 'They stitched wedding [scenes], ke?yeh patterns and verses of poetry. Embroidery stood in solidarity with their steadfastness.'

Today, in the face of machine-made imports, hand embroidery has become a commodity. NGOs enable women to use tatreez as an income stream, though the model has its flaws: piece work can be unreliable, and profits inevitably accrue to distributors rather than creators. Nevertheless, Gaza's reputation as a centre for textile production persists, centred on the striped fabrics used for school uniforms worn by children around Palestine. Sulafa works with more than four hundred women, each supporting a family of six or more, pairing younger trainees with skilled elders for coaching. 'I love that tatreez empowers women. Its importance lies in the transmission of the immense wealth of this heritage to future generations,' Niveen says.

Of the Majdalawi weaver families who arrived in Gaza after the Nakba, only a handful remained active before October 2023, some selling through the Nol Collective, a Ramallah-based design studio. Their handwoven rugs now serve as blankets for the displaced. Yet, says Niveen, tatreez helped Sulafa's women 'attain psychological stability. They display high levels of concentration and the ability to create despite pain and suffering.'

At the time of writing, with supply lines broken and outlets destroyed, many artisans have left. No weavers remain in Gaza. 'Sulafa started in refugee tents in 1950. Now, in 2024, displaced women are still embroidering, back in tents once again,' says Niveen. 'We will return,' adds Ibrahim Muhtadi, who for three years directed Sulafa's embroidery output. 'We keep these crafts alive so that we remember who we are. It's resistance. We will keep producing, and we will keep rebuilding.'

Historian Katherine Pangonis is the author of Queens of Jerusalem (2021) and Twilight Cities (2023). During two years in Lebanon she consulted for UNDP, volunteered with UNRWA and...