Brushstrokes and Seedlings: Noura Al-Qassassiya

 Brushstrokes and Seedlings: Noura Al-Qassassiya

In the heart of Gaza’s shifting ruins, Noura Al-Qassassiya holds a brush in one hand and a seedling in the other. A fashion designer by training, Noura never imagined that one day, her creativity would become a lifeline not just for herself, but for those around her. War has redrawn the lines of her identity. oura is now many things at once: artist, caregiver, daughter, emotional anchor, and displaced woman navigating the unthinkable. Her life is a balancing act performed on broken ground. Her canvas has expanded, from fabrics and sketchbooks to destroyed fields, camp tents, and children's faces. Her life is a balancing act performed on broken ground.

When war engulfed Gaza again, Noura didn’t stop working, rather she shifted. She began offering art workshops for displaced children, planting sessions in devastated neighborhoods, and moments of presence for women whose pain had no place to go. Her mission wasn’t just beauty. It was survival. Art to speak what can’t be said. Soil to remember what’s been lost.

But behind that strength is a woman holding herself together day by day, moment by moment. Displacement didn’t just strip her of her home, it scrambled her roles and blurred her boundaries. In every hour, she switches between comforting others and trying not to fall apart herself

“Sometimes I feel like I’m living all my roles at once,” she says. “The volunteer, the artist, the daughter, the emotional support for everyone around me. And I’m displaced too. I’m exhausted. But I keep going.”

 To cope, Noura has built quiet strategies. She carves out slivers of time, sometimes only minutes to draw, write, or simply breathe. She shares responsibilities with those around her, choosing teamwork over self-sacrifice. And when her body says rest, she listens. Not out of luxury, but out of survival.

“I used to think balance meant doing everything perfectly. But now I know it just means being honest with myself, showing up in each moment with what I can, even if it’s not much.”

One moment etched into her memory is planting tiny seedlings with an elderly woman in a displacement camp. The woman, once a landowner in Beit Lahia, had lost everything. But in a patch of sand beside her tent, she knelt down, nurturing fragile shoots as if tending a lush garden.

“She wasn’t planting vegetables,” Noura recalls. “She was planting hope. Her love for the land hadn’t left her. It was her quiet way of resisting death, of insisting that life still belonged here.”

 

That moment reminded Noura why she keeps showing up not despite her exhaustion, but because of it. Every painting, every seed, every small act is a declaration that she and her community are still here. Still feeling. Still dreaming.

“Being a woman has taught me to see the things others miss. I see a mother’s unspoken grief, a girl’s trembling silence. These details are where I begin. My art is my voice. And my presence, however imperfect, is my way of resisting disappearance.”

 In the silence that follows each airstrike, Noura continues to listen, to hold a space. Her work isn’t always loud or visible, but it’s stitched into the everyday fabric of survival. Whether painting a mural with children in a tented classroom or sharing a meal with a grieving neighbor, she shows up with what she has: presence. Care. Witness. In a world that too often overlooks Gazan women, Noura insists on being seen not as a symbol, but as a full human being carrying more than one story at once.

“We’re not just surviving; we’re creating, grieving, nurturing, resisting, all at once. And sometimes, just staying soft in a place that tries to harden you, that, too, is an act of defiance.” 

Her dream is simple: to live a quiet, creative life. To see Gaza rebuild, not just with bricks, but with art, memory, and dignity. She wants the world to know that women like her are not footnotes to war. They are the ones holding the pieces together.

“To every woman living through war: don’t underestimate the power of your smallest acts. Every time you show up, you’re planting something. Even your survival is a kind of resistance.”

And her message to the world? 
"We are not numbers. We are human beings who love, dream, fear, and lose. We are not fleeting images on the news. Our children are not “collateral damage,” and our homes are not just maps to be redrawn.
Open your eyes, your hearts, your conscience.
Your silence is killing us.
Your solidarity could save us.
Palestine is not a distant issue, it is a moral test for the whole world."