in Tel Aviv, artists reproduce a Hamas tunnel to represent the hostage situation

To materialize the fate of the hostages, released or still prisoners, artists from Tel Aviv have recreated one of the Hamas tunnels, in which the hostages have been locked up for almost two months.

“There is a phrase in Hebrew that says: ‘there is a light at the end of the tunnel’!” This tunnel is 25 meters long, made of cardboard and PVC, which wind under the Suzanne Dellal contemporary dance center in Tel Aviv. With its ground covered in sand and its row of pale bulbs, the dark and trying installation stands out in this trendy and bright place. It is precisely this uneasiness that its designer Roni Levavi wanted to create. “Not everyone goes through the tunnel”he describes. “There are people for whom it’s difficult: they look, they move around, they don’t know what to do: that’s the goal!”

“Art does not necessarily have to make us feel comfortable. The idea is to send a strong message, what drives us is to get them out of there, to bring them home to of their families, and of the people of Israel.”

Roni Levavi, artist

at franceinfo

While fighting has resumed in the Gaza Strip, after six days of truce, life is returning to an air of normality in Israel’s major cities: stores and restaurants are reopening, the beaches are filling up again. But the fate of the remaining hostages, still in the hands of Hamas in Gaza, obsesses the population.

The visitors, on this Shabbat afternoon, are mainly families out for a walk, like that of Rohad, who came with his father and his little niece. “We think a lot about the hostages and we would like to feel close to them”he explains. “And at the same time it’s ambiguous: on the one hand, here it’s Shabbat, we walk, we have family meals, life goes on, but we don’t want to forget the hostages.”

“It could have been me or my children!”

At the other end of the tunnel, Ruth and her daughter write a message of peace in marker on the walls. They come from a kibbutz very close to those which were attacked on October 7 by Hamas. So Ruth doesn’t need a false tunnel to identify with the hostages. “It’s very hard to see all this”she confides, moved. “For my daughter it’s okay, because I told her it was a game, but for us, it’s very trying. Because it could have been me or my children! The terrorists did not enter our kibbutz, we still don’t understand by what miracle. It’s chance, but that’s life!”

As a reminder, at the entrance to the tunnel, a counter ticks off the 56 days, hours and minutes that the hostages have already spent in real tunnels in Gaza. The very popular installation is expected to be dismantled in the coming days. We are already announcing it soon in New York.