Gaza artist builds model of bombed family home inside displacement tent

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza — A 26-year-old Palestinian plastic artist has built a scale model of his family home, destroyed in the war, inside the tent where he now lives in southern Gaza's Khan Younis. Mohammed al-Yazouri, a graduate of Gaza's Al-Aqsa University, said he converted his graduation project into the model using basic materials such as wood, fabric and cardboard, and is also working on a painting reflecting the pain of forced displacement. Al-Yazouri said the project, titled "Barzakh Above the Earth" with the subtitle "Land and the Absence of Land," aims to visualize the sharp contrast between life in a tent and life before the war. The model reproduces the doors, windows and rooms of his prewar home, with some wooden pieces recovered from the destroyed structure and reused. According to a United Nations report dated April 2026, more than 371,000 housing units have been fully destroyed or damaged since the conflict began on October 7, 2023. The same report said roughly 1.9 million people have been displaced and more than 60 percent of the population have lost their homes. On July 30, U.S. President Trump announced that the Board of Peace had reached an agreement on the disarmament of Hamas and armed groups, with the deal to be implemented in stages, including an Israeli withdrawal and the deployment of an international stabilization force alongside a new Palestinian police unit.