Two Sisters Cleared Rubble by Hand to Build Gaza's Haws Cinema

Two sisters spent months clearing rubble by hand to open Haws Cinema, a movie theater for children in Gaza. Shaimaa and Safaa Dhabban couldn't get heavy machinery, so they hauled the debris away themselves before a single frame could be projected.

"We started by removing the rubble that had blocked the path to the cinema," Safaa said. "It took months, and we did it by hand because we couldn't get heavy machinery."

The project opens a rare window in a place where cinemagoing mostly died decades ago. Most of Gaza's remaining cultural centers have been heavily damaged or destroyed since the war began. Most schools are destroyed, and the ones still standing serve as shelters for displaced people. Hundreds of thousands of children have been out of school for almost three years.

Where did the idea come from?

The sisters built Haws on an old family habit. Shaimaa and Safaa grew up watching animated films together after school every day.

"The idea was to take this experience to a bigger space," Shaimaa said. "We wanted to do something different and share our experience of cinema with the children of Gaza."

Their backgrounds shaped the work. Shaimaa has an information technology degree and worked as a graphic designer before the war. Safaa studied English and translation and has translated films and TV shows for fun since she was 16. She once ran an online business selling Korean food. She is now raising twin daughters alone; her husband was killed in the early days of the conflict.

The cinema is both a labor of love and a source of income. Its main purpose, the sisters say, is giving children a space apart from their daily reality — away from the noise of planes and constant war news.

What does running a cinema in wartime take?

Almost every basic input became a fight:

• Power. Solar was too expensive. A generator kept failing, and the backup generator needed fuel that had become rare and very expensive.
• Connectivity. Destroyed infrastructure means little internet access. "I stay up all night trying to download films," Safaa said. "The internet keeps cutting out."
• The room itself. The sisters encased the screening area in tarpaulins, fabric and metal sheets to darken it — materials now costly because of restrictions on raw materials entering Gaza. "We spent a lot of money preparing very simple things for the cinema," Safaa said. "It's taking a constant toll on our resources and putting our ability to keep going at risk."
• Damage. "The shelling hasn't stopped," Shaimaa said. "It causes a lot of damage to the space and the equipment."

How do they choose the films?

Carefully, and always in full. The sisters watch every film before screening it.

"We make sure to choose entertaining films that are free of violence," Shaimaa said. The logic is straightforward: the right film can ease the effects of trauma, while the wrong one risks reproducing it. Children in Gaza need to see a different world, even an imaginary one.

The screenings have become interactive. Discussions continue afterward, in person and online, and families send film suggestions through social media. During screenings, Shaimaa watches the children's expressions and reactions.

"When we see the effect of a film on their faces, we know that we have succeeded, even if only briefly, in taking the war out of their imagination," she said.

Who actually gets to come?

Attendance is limited by economics and logistics. Mass unemployment and collapsed household incomes mean many families can't afford even the cheapest tickets. Broken transportation infrastructure keeps other children away.

Many of those who do come have no television at home — most houses are destroyed, and there's often no electricity to run a working set.

The children's words carry the loss plainly. One boy told Safaa he wished he could take the screen back to his tent, then realized it wouldn't fit. "The tent is barely big enough for his family."

A girl told her: "I had a small phone that I used to watch videos and films, but the screen broke, and my father could no longer afford to have it repaired. I came to the cinema to watch the films I like."

Shaimaa remembers a child who bought two tickets to a screening. When she asked why, he replied: "One is for me, and the other is for my brother who was killed. We used to watch movies together, and I don't want to watch the movie alone."

What comes next?

The sisters want more than the current screenings. They envision a permanent cinema that becomes part of the city's cultural life after the war — a place where children can gather away from the images of destruction around them.

"If a child has lost someone close to them, the least we can do is let them watch a movie in a cinema where they can't hear the sounds of war," Shaimaa said. "For a moment, a film can make them feel that life will continue."

For roughly ninety minutes at a time, that holds true. The film ends, the children return to tents, shelters and damaged homes, and nothing outside has changed. Haws can't rebuild a school or bring back the dead. But it can give children hours in which their lives aren't defined by war — and for the Dhabban sisters, that's reason enough to keep going.