Dede brushes her teeth excitedly in her Naples apartment, while Soso looks at her reflection in a shattered mirror fragment. Dede wakes up smiling, hugging her dolls, while Soso rises on a thin mattress, in a room with bare yellowing walls.
Dede lives in Naples, while Soso lives in Gaza. One day, they will meet.
The new Between Gaza and Naples collaborative photography project details the everyday lives of these two little girls, one in the hearth of the world-famous Neapolitan pizza, and the other surrounded by the violence that the UN deemed genocidal in September, 2025.
The collaborators, Italian Raffaele Annunziata, and Gazan Mahmoud Abu Al-Qaraya, connected on social media earlier this year, and were inspired to use their shared art as a medium of advocacy for children’s rights.
“Law speaks in articles; photography speaks in feelings. A calm, truthful frame can carry the same claim: every child deserves safety and learning,” Abu Al-Qaraya told EU Reports.
Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7, 2023, the Gazan photographer’s family has been displaced four times: from the north to the Maghazi region, to Rafah, to Khan Younis, to Deir Al-Balah. Most of the 29-year-old’s extended relatives and friends have either gone missing or have been killed, including his brother-in-law, who died following an air strike on their home.
“I met Mahmoud on Instagram in 2025 and was struck by the quality and beauty of his photographs. Mahmoud has been documenting the horror of the past two years in Palestine with an incredibly powerful and delicate authorial gaze,” Annunziata, who goes by tylerdurdan on social media, said while in conversation with EU Reports.
Abu Al-Qaraya photographed first in Gaza, because war conditions make it so that images cannot be staged or re-created, while Annunziata then documented Dede’s everyday life, a stark contrast to Soso’s.
Both photographers wanted to tell the story of the ongoing war in Palestine, but they did not want to show explicit images of the conflict. Instead, they focused on childhood because, as Annunziata explains, “can anyone remain indifferent when faced with such devastated innocence?”
“We decided to focus on the story of two girls we know well: his niece Soso and my daughter, Dede, to create a real narrative, not mediated by staged scenes,” the Italian urban photographer and founder of Seed Media Agency noted.
“It was very difficult to include my daughter- I’m not the kind of father who shares every moment of his child’s life online- but I couldn’t turn away from this necessity. Dede’s eyes when she wakes up are the real gaze of a five-year-old just out of bed, playing at being the protagonist on her father’s reportage,” he continued.
Abu Al-Qaraya, on the other hand, points to concerns for his niece’s safety, and stressed that they discussed consent and privacy beforehand.
“In Gaza, routine is fragile. Small rituals become big…Soso smiling into a cracked mirror, walking to school with her water bottle. The most meaningful frames are the quiet ones, where she can simply be a child; the hardest are the interruptions, sirens, closures, uncertainty,” he said.
Since October 7, 2023
The ongoing war in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip began when Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist political and militant movement designated by the U.S. and the EU as a terrorist organization, launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
According to Israeli authorities, the attack killed 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians, and Hamas took over 200 hostages.
Former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant then ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip on October 9, 2023, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiteratively claiming that he seeks a “total victory” over Hamas, which includes destroying the group’s military and governing capacities.
Israel’s continued military campaign in Occupied Palestinian Territories has persisted for just under two years, including air strikes, ground incursions, and restrictions that have devastated civilian infrastructure and displaced thousands- like Abu Al-Qaraya and his family.
Image Source: Mahmoud Abu Al-Qaraya via Instagram
Gazan officials have denounced that over 66,000 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict broke out. On Sunday, September 28 alone, 79 bodies were brought to hospitals, while 379 people were injured from air strikes, while an additional six were killed and 66 wounded when trying to get humanitarian aid, according to Turkish newspaper Anadolu Ajansı.
On September 16, a specialized UN independent commission, which had been investigating the events on and since October 2023, concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts outlined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
In this, the body found that Israeli forces had killed, caused serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicted conditions of life “calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part,” and imposed measures intended to prevent births. The one genocidal act that Israel is not accused of is forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The human cost of war-torn Palestine
Since March 3, 2025, Israel has also imposed a full blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and in May, the country’s Security Cabinet approved a plan to expand operations in the Gaza Strip- including a full occupation of the territory. As a result, Palestinian civilians, including one million children, face acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, a coalition of activists, humanitarians, doctors, artists, and organizers from 46 countries, set sail on August 31, 2025 from Barcelona, Spain on more than 50 boats, seeking to break Israel’s blockade and deliver aid.
Read more: Can Europe’s Gaza protests make a difference?
Since 2010, all flotillas attempting to break the Gaza blockade have been intercepted or attacked by Israel in international waters, according to Al Jazeera. Last week, however, Spain and Italy dispatched naval vessels to assist the Global Sumud Flotilla in an unprecedented move of support from the international community.
Despite Italy remaining in the minority of EU countries which have not recognized Palestinian statehood, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s description of the flotilla as “gratuitous, dangerous and irresponsible,” Annunziata remains committed to the defense of minorities and the Palestinian cause.
“It is impossible to compare the tragedy that Soso has been living through for the past two years with the life of a child raised in the Western capitalist world. The horror speaks for itself. Childhood should be guaranteed, for every child in the world, without exception,” he said.
“Unfortunately, Palestinian children do not have the same rights and privileges as ours. Humanity should never stop feeling ashamed for this,” Annunziata continued.
Image Credit: UNRWA via Wikimedia Commons
Creative Commons Licenses
Organizations like the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees have not been permitted to deliver food, medicine and other essentials into Gaza since March. Wheat flour prices have soared by up to 150,000% since October 2023, health services are near collapse, and 90% of the Gazan population has been forcibly displaced, according to UN figures.
Now, famine has been declared in Gaza, with over half a million people facing widespread starvation, destitution, and preventable deaths. In late August, the World Health Organization estimated that over 640,000 individuals would face catastrophic food insecurity by the end of September, with malnutrition among children accelerating rapidly.
In July, 2025 alone, more than 12,000 children in Gaza were identified as acutely malnourished, the highest monthly figure ever recorded.
When asked what were the main barriers he encountered in providing Soso a simple childhood, Abu Al-Qaraya spoke of “safety and movement limits; displacement; school closures, overcrowded or damaged schools; power, water, and healthcare disruptions; anxiety, interrupted sleep, [and] grief.”
Art as advocacy
Between Gaza and Naples captures the raw, unmediated reality faced by countless children around the world: Dede might well be any child living in Europe, and Soso represents the millions who have been forced to play, learn, and imagine while living in an active war zone.
Annunziata emphasized the difference between his work and Abu Al-Qaraya’s, pointing to the harsh realities of documenting life in Gaza.
“Mahmoud is not an amateur going out to shoot a nice landscape. He is a photographer who depends on his work to live, and it must be extremely difficult for him to find the time for this project. For that, I will never stop thanking him,” he noted.
The Italian photographer also clarified that the project does not seek to change public opinion, because “mass culture tends to simplify complex ideas and polarize discussions until they lose their impact.” Instead, both men “want to show what is happening, without trying to prove anything.”
“A humane, captioned sequence can turn numbers into lives. Publication opens doors to classroom discussions, community support, and practical aid like school supplies or safe transport,” Abu Al-Qaraya’s said.
The portrayal of their own daughter and niece in Between Gaza and Naples reflects their desire to avoid spectacle:
“I hate the image of Naples, my city, as a puppet theater, and I didn’t want to frame it that way. If even a single person looks at our work, gains a clearer understanding of the ongoing genocide, and makes a conscious choice, then Mahmoud and I will be happy,” Annunziata stressed.
“I center dignity, not spectacle. Family comes first, then the camera. Editing [the pictures] together with Raffaele keeps me focused on tenderness and balance,” Abu Al-Qaraya added.
Annunziata would like the project to inspire others to advocate for the people of Gaza: “Every single day, each of us can act, without waiting for governments, NGOs, or flotillas.” Telling Palestinians’ stories, and collaborating with Abu Al-Qaraya was his way of contributing to the cause.
The Gazan photographer, on the other hand, wants peace for children around the world.
“If a peaceful morning is possible in one city, then it should be possible in every city. Support policies and practical aid that keep children safe, educated, and free to grow. Defending childhood is not charity; it’s a universal duty,” he noted.
“History, in any case, will not forgive the indifferent and the passive,” Annunziata concluded. Between Gaza and Naples is available online, and Mahmoud’s work can also be supported through the Go Get Funding crowdfunding platform.
Featured image:
Image: Soso
Author: Mahmoud Abu Al-Qaraya
Source: Between Gaza and Naples
