Irish architect, Féile Butler (Sligo), and Palestinian community worker, Mohammed Timraz (Deir al Balah, Gaza) met through Instagram very early on in the genocide and quickly became fast friends.

Before long, the children in both households began to share artwork including the one here from Shahed, aged 7, It stopped Feile in her in her tracks. There are layers of horror in this drawing.

Féile knew there and then that she and Mohammed had to put on an exhibition of children’s art rom Gaza; giving the most voiceless, the most vulnerable, and the most impacted by this genocide a platform to communicate their experience with the world.

The first exhibition launched just 4 weeks later, in July 2024 at The Weir Gallery in Sligo, showcasing the work of 14 young artists, aged 3 to 17. Tragically, 2 of the featured artists, Mohammed (13) and Reema (9), were killed, along with 26 other members of their family in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023.

HeART of Gaza has been exhibited at Electric Picnic in August as well as a number of towns in Ireland. Constantly expanding, as more children participate in the project in Gaza, the 2025 nationwide tour has been around the country and has also taken off globally, with shows in Chicago, London, Turin, Bologna, Rome, Hamburg, Berlin and Montpellier, to name but a few. There have been 35 shows around the world to date.

Thanks to the success of project, the Palestinian team have built The Artists Tent in Deir al Balah, in the very heart of Gaza, a space dedicated to running children’s art workshops.

Facilitating 12 children at a time for 12 sessions, provides desperately needed respite from their unbearable living nightmare.

Workshops are hosted alongside the exhibitions, inviting members of the public to make art in response to . This work is scanned and sent back to Mohammed and his team. The first exhibitions “from the outside” took place in October 2024.

School Workshops/Collaborations

Féile is particularly keen to promote workshops in schools. They can be tailored for primary or secondary school students. Our local primary school pupils have been busy making their own art to share. This will form part of the exhibition.

Shahed’s drawing