Blackout in Gaza

How are we to treat images of genocide that flood our screens? I address this question by discussing the circulation of these images in the wake of a long history of variously documented Palestinian disasters. I frame my comments around two axes: the potential danger and efficacy of the humanitarian image and the practice of young Palestinians smiling to the camera as they were arrested during the attacks on the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem in 2021, and consider them in relation to the production and circulation of images about the 1976 siege and fall of Tall al-Zaʿtar in Lebanon.