What’s the best thing that ever happened to you? my mind asked me long ago. I said, Learning that you are not me.
Andrea Gibson
The mind is a cage. Here's the key ( 2015 )
cover page stills from the video by ©Myuz Ahmed, Gaza, July 27, 2025 www.hansovervliet.com
in loving memory of Abu Bashir
2019 – May 12, 2025
Three paper floursacks with the UNRWA* / GHF** logo with 25 kg of white weat pouring over 12 black and white photos (A3) from Gaza, July 2025.
Video courtesy by ©Myuz Ahmed, July 27, 2025, Gaza Strip edited to black and white mixed with the sound of a 16 mm fim projector.
July 27 – August 12, 2025
Video of the work
August 2025, recording & edit | Jochem Weststraten
Support Myoz
You can support Myuz Ahmed in his work with traumatised children in his Children's Psychological Support Center: http://paypal.me/myuzgaza123 | https://gofund.me/6c7692e9
UNRWA* / GHF** | please see page 15
Grandfather Stadt
Daily I receive one or more videos from my Gazan friend and colleague Myuz Ahmed. Myuz works in the Strip with traumatised children. In addition, every day he sends out his videos in which he simply shows what remains of his world by walking down of what is left of his beloved habitat. His images pile up in my head with all the other horrors of that day. Of course it does not leave me unmoved, but it does not overwhelm me either.
Until 26 July. A reel of just under seven seconds. I see a bearded man crouching down, scraping something out of the sand and putting that something in a brown paper bag.
For a moment, I manage to convince myself that I am not seeing what I’m seeing. That this is not a man trying to extract the last remnants of some spilled flour from the sand, in order to bake something resembling a loaf of bread with it “at home”.
After a few seconds, my defences collapse and I realise what I am seeing. Suddenly, my grandfather's history becomes a full-colour reality. I see him returning tired and emaciated from a trip in winter 1944 from Leiden beyond Haarlem. To the polders where his family originates from. He has hung two panniers on his bicycle – indeed with wooden tyres – containing some potatoes and vegetables to feed his family.
toes and vegetables to feed his family. As he returns at the Morspoort, he is stopped by four German soldiers and forced to throw his hard-earned belongings into the canal - the Morssingel. I would like to point out that my grandfather did not tell this story to vent his hatred for the Nazis: he always added that “we” would never resort to such practices. As a child, he made me promise that solemnly; I will never forget the look in his eyes when he said that. Watching the man in the video endlessly, I hear Grandfathers Stadt’s voice, I feel his anger, his powerlessness, the sadness, the humiliation, the defeat. The sadness about the man in the video is now hitting me hard and will completely paralyse me for a few days. Because we had solemnly promised my Grandpa that completely paralyse me for a few days. Because we had solemnly promised my Grandpa that “we” would never let it come to this again. That “we” had drawn up international laws in accordance with the Magna Carta Libertatum from 1215, established the U.N., installed the I.C.C. (in The Hague of all places!) as the successor to the Nuremberg trials, we set up the Geneva Conventions (Article 47!) etc., etc. Never again exclamation mark. And yet: the man in the video was forcedtoperformthesamehumiliating and life-threatening act my grandfather Stadt did in the cold winter of 1944. “We” have lost badly . . .
UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) is the organization that until Mach 2025 was responsible for providing the Gaza Strip concentration camp with food, water, education and medicine. Throughout the whole Gaza Strip UNWRA had dozens of offices and hundreds of distribution points. Why the UNWRA had to stop?
The Israeli government accused the organization of harboring members of Hamas. Obviously an utter lie, debunked by all possible media and tens of NGO’s. Nevertheless, the apartheid state persisted and banned UNWRA from providing aid in the Strip. In its place, America, of vourse supported by Israel, established the organistion The in February 2025.
ted by Israel, established The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in February 2025. Instead of hundreds of distribution points, the organization reduced them to three. In total violation of the law of war and f.i. the Geneva Convention, Gazaans now had to come to those dis-tribution points. Once arrived there, they were caged like animals and shot indiscriminately with gunfire and gre-nades. It is now clear that these are nothing more than a deadly trap.
On Aug. 1, at these dispensing points alone we counted more than 1,200 murdered, starving people. Among the people who survived the attacks, a horrifyingly “detail” emerged: From a
horrifyingly “detail” emerged: From a hospital in Gaza, British surgeon Nick Maynard said that he and his colleagues have observed a troubling pattern: multiple patients come in with gunshot wounds to the exact same area of the body. "Lately, especially teenage boys are being brought in with gunshot wounds to the testicles," Next to the deathtoll we count thousands injured. In the context of the totally destroyed hospital structure, of course, a disaster by itself. Apart from these atrocities, it appears that “the aid” provided by GHF is totally inadequate to feed the now starving population of Gaza. Currently, hundreds of Gazans are dying of starvation every day. The extraordinarily expensive airlift being set up is unfortunately a perverse PR stunt:
starvation every day. The extraordinarily expensive airlift being set up is unfortunately an utterly perverse PR stunt: each plane can carry as much as one truckload. Experts estimate that some six- to seven-hundred trucks of relief supplies every day are needed to meet the most basic demands.
At the moment the number of trucks crossing the Egyptian border is 96. Not by the day, but by the week.
So, in violation of every international law, Israel continues to use food as a weapon. A war crime. Period.
We must stop the Israeli slaughter and bring bring back the UNRWA. Both immediately so.
Middelburg, August 1, 2025
For Abu Bashir (2019 – May 12, 2025) a friend I never got to know . . .
Ahmed & Abu Bashir 2025, Gaza
Thanks to
Muyz Ahmed for the video (26/07/’25 – Gaza )
Willy van Houtum for her critique on the first draft
Jochem Westratate video image editing / sound
Bakkerij ’t Zand Middelburg paper flour pouches the unknown photographers
Martha Jager, curator Vleeshal in MiddelburgNL about the oeuvre (2023) after a studio visit: The dedication to art as a relational verb is central to Overvliet's work. On the one hand, the balance between poetry and criticism is special, in that the work never becomes bitter or pedantic, while at the same time the dialogue with the viewer is actively maintained. Hans’ arwork is a tender form of activism that moves and urges action and also continuously questions the role of art.
