'In Israel, There Always Seems to Be an Argument to Justify the Killing of a Child'

Israeli student Eyal Landman has found a special way of introducing Israelis to Palestinian babies killed in Gaza. 'When information reaches you through the senses, it can bypass the mechanisms of denial,' he says

Protesters from the group Standing Together carrying photos of Gazan children killed by Israel in the war. [Photo Credit: Tomer Appelbaum]

In a dark room, a marble slab rests on a simple stainless steel cart. If you put your hands on it and stay still, a photo of your hands is projected onto the wall, accompanied by the name of a baby killed in Gaza, one of 958 Palestinian infants who have died there since October 7, 2023.

Well into its run, more than 130 people had experienced "Zero Range," a minimalist installation by Eyal Landman, an architect and designer completing his master's in design and technology at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.

"Zero Range," which employs motion-recognition technology and its own database, was on view at Bezalel's campus in the city's Russian Compound neighborhood.

"There were all kinds of responses to the work. Some visitors would read the accompanying text and quickly move on. Others only watched as people put their hands on the marble but didn't do this themselves," Landman says.

"Some put their hands on it and immediately pulled them away, without waiting for the name to appear on the wall. Many who did waited a few seconds and withdrew their hands immediately when the baby's name appeared on the screen."

An Israeli placing his hands in Landman's exhibition. [Photo Credit: Noam Debel]

It's hard to endure the juxtaposition of a photo of yourself with the name of a dead baby. There's something profoundly intimate about it.

"It's hard because it becomes a personal encounter with a specific reality. But it's not only personal: The hands of every visitor are recorded and preserved alongside the name, forming a digital archive of Israeli recognition that grows with each visit."

Landman began working on the installation less than a year ago. He says it started with the question of how he, an architect and an activist, could apply technological and design skills to support rights groups like B'Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Forensic Architecture, a London-based group that conducts spatial analyses of events worldwide, including in the West Bank.

"The starting point was that in the age of social media, there's an overwhelming amount of information. So my questions were: How do we approach this information and make it accessible? How do we contend with the sheer volume of images, tables, texts and videos from October 7 and even before?"

Bypassing the mechanism of denial

Landman says he came across spreadsheets listing the names of the dead in Gaza. "I went through many columns of numerical data, and then a column labeled 'zero' suddenly jumped out at me," he says.

"It took me a few seconds to realize that this column referred to babies under the age of 1 – children who hadn't even reached the status of a full column in the table.

[Photo Credit: Tomer Appelbaum]

The hands of every visitor are recorded and preserved alongside the name, forming a digital archive of Israeli recognition that grows with each visit. - Eyal Landman

"Suddenly, all the questions about people's lives being reduced to tables and numbers, and what we do with that information and how we approach it, coalesced into a clearer sense of direction for action."

Meanwhile, the debate continues in Israel over whether one should feel compassion for hungry or wounded Palestinian children. Former soccer star and media personality Eyal Berkovic summarized this sentiment on his television show: "Why are you showing me pictures of hunger in Gaza all day? I don't care about them. I have no feelings for them."

Berkovic's reasoning, echoed by many others, is that "these starving children will come to kill us in a few years."

As Landman puts it, even Naftali Bennett, who went on to become prime minister, once said: "An 8-year-old holding an incendiary kite is a terrorist and should be shot.'" Landman adds: "Somehow, in Israel, there always seems to be an argument to justify the killing of a child, no matter their age. When I came across the zero column, the thought occurred to me that maybe confronting the deaths of babies under 1 year old could crack this mechanism."

From the exhibition "Zero Range." [Photo Credit: Noam Debel]

In his creative process, Landman also considered the people who don't deny that atrocities are taking place in Gaza; they too can be numbed by the relentless stream of images and data.

"During the work, I drew on texts such as 'Regarding the Pain of Others,' in which Susan Sontag wrote about images depicting the suffering of others and how those images can become a kind of commodity that we eventually grow indifferent to," he says.

It's the dilemma of how to talk about the babies who have been killed as we're exposed every day to more and more images of children who have died. The Daily File website by Adi Argov, for example, is a confrontation with images of children who are starving, wounded or dead, or images of sweet, smiling children who once were alive.

"I tried to break through the mechanism that leaves us overwhelmed by this endless suffering, and my solution was to use the senses to make the information more accessible. When you put your hands on the marble, you feel its texture and temperature. When information reaches you through the senses, it can bypass the mechanisms of denial and concealment more effectively."

'We feel the power in our hands: They can strike and they can caress; they don't need any mediation. This is probably why some people recoiled after putting their hands on the marble.'

Even the choice of a cart and a marble slab, which might remind us of a home kitchen, becomes a bit disorienting when placed in a different context.

"I used a simple IKEA cart and a marble slab, just everyday objects that suggest sterility but also evoke a day at work. But the only tools we use are our hands. We feel the power in our hands: They can strike and they can caress; they don't need any mediation. This is probably why some people recoiled after putting their hands on the marble, or why others didn't want to touch the installation at all."

Landman says he doesn't seek to preach to anyone. "Every interaction with this space is relevant. There's no response that's more or less correct, because the aim is to see how people react to the information projected in front of them," he says.

"If they want, visitors can ask themselves questions during or after. It's an attempt to create a baseline that rarely exists: If you don't know or aren't aware of what's happening in Gaza, it's easier to go about your daily life wondering why you didn't get that call back from the garage or why your flight got canceled."

Former soccer star and media personality Eyal Berkovic: "Why are you showing me pictures of hunger in Gaza all day? I don't care about them. I have no feelings for them."

An antithesis to the current reality

Most of the projects in the exhibition focused on what happened to Israeli civilians on October 7, or to soldiers. "So far, I haven't seen any project related to the Palestinians," Landman says.

"Coincidentally, because I needed a dark space to project the names of the babies onto the wall, the installation was placed in the campus shelter, so if the air raid siren went off, people would have no choice but to be near the work at that moment. It was a charged encounter with the contemporary Israeli identity."

'We need to offer a counterpoint to this reality, rather than just move on and focus only on beautiful things.'

Many of the visitors were people who have been to Gaza, or parents of soldiers, or parents in general. Were you worried about harsh reactions?

"I had doubts and concerns before the opening. People come to an event like this expecting to see beautiful things. But a good friend convinced me to give it a try, and I'm glad I did.

"The long process of working on the project was a daily struggle: going to Friday family dinners, meeting my nieces and then returning to read more data, seeing sweet babies on the streets nearby and then updating the columns, translating all the names. I had to engage with difficult information intensely and without harming myself.

"I'm still dealing with it, because I continue to track how many people photographed themselves with their hands on the marble one evening, and how many just placed their hands and walked away. It's important to me to monitor the reactions and create an archive, because the work is relevant to the current public conversation."

What have other students presenting their work said about the installation?

"Most of the responses have been positive, though there have been some disagreements. I spoke with a student who said he focuses on his own home and takes care of his own tribe first. I told him I understood that this was how he felt, but I hoped that we all cared about everybody, not just our own people.

"Our conversation then turned into a discussion on the ability, or inability, to engage with the suffering of others. It turned out that his project also engaged the senses, and we talked about how entering protected spaces, and creating in them, affects us."

The debate on the role of culture and art amid the suffering in Gaza has been sharpened by harsh reactions to a petition signed by leading Israeli artists against the war, as well as by questions about where students and young people stand and why their voices on the conflict are barely heard.

Landman says that the day before our conversation, Bezalel students organized an antiwar protest installation in front of the exhibition. They lay on the ground covered with sheets as a reminder of the images of the dead in Gaza.

"Some people came by and shouted, 'This is Israel!' – and a small commotion broke out. It was a strange encounter because these sights aren't common here, but it reassured me to know that there are people who feel the same way," he says.

"We need to offer a counterpoint to this reality, rather than just move on and focus only on beautiful things. Beautiful and well-designed creations have their place, but right now we need to confront the ugly reality and engage with it."

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