A Palestinian woman utilizes empty grenades in the most meaningful of ways, and, no, it’s not by refilling them with explosives. She has planted a garden full of flowers grown inside of empty tear-gas grenades collected from clashes between local Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.
Located in the Village of Bilin, near the state of Palestine’s de facto capital of Ramallah, this garden marks a patch of land that Palestinians were able to reclaim two years ago after a court battle to re-route Israel’s controversial security wall. While the conflict and violence between the Israeli and Palestinians seems far from ending, there is no short supply of grenades for these small flower pots.
We hope for peace in the region, but in the meantime, its nice to see strong, spirited and creative people in the middle of this conflict exhibit peaceful protest demonstrations like this. Village organizer Mohammed Khatib said that the garden, which now contains hundreds of gas-grenade-turned-flower-pots, is meant to show that “life can spring from death.”