On October 7, Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting hundreds more. In response, Israel initiated a retaliatory offensive that decimated a third of Gazan infrastructure and killed more than 20,000 Palestinians by mid-December. Watching these horrors unfold in real time sparked tensions in the artworld and beyond. 

Amid the violence, artists became victims of war. Thirty-six-year-old filmmaker Yahav Winner was shot dead in the Kfar Aza kibbutz on October 7 after protecting his wife and newborn daughter from militants who invaded their home. On October 13, Heba Zagout, a 39-year-old Gaza-based painter of vibrant cityscapes, self-portraits, and symbols of Palestinian identity, was killed in an Israeli air strike along with two of her four children.