سِجِلّ

Sijill (سِجِلّ) is the Arabic word for a register — an official record in which events are written down and kept in order. This is one such record: photographs made in Gaza since October 2023, filed as they were taken, each with a number, a date, and a place. It is not a gallery. It is a register of what was here.

My name is Mahmoud Elhalabi. I made every photograph in it. I was here the whole time — these are the streets I grew up in, the sea I have always known, and the people who stayed. I am not a war photographer; I am someone from Gaza who kept photographing, because keeping a record was one of the few things left that I could do.

They are in black and white on purpose. Stripped of color, a photograph is harder to look at for its beauty and easier to read as fact. What remains is the shape of a thing that happened.

These photographs may be shared freely, with credit to Mahmoud Elhalabi and a link to sijills.com. They may not be used commercially without permission. (Creative Commons BY-NC.)