When Kegham Djeghalian photographed daily life in Gaza last century, the Palestinian territory was synonymous with Hollywood-inspired brides, fancy dress parties and excursions to smoke a hookah at the beach.They are images from a time far removed from the rubble and tent cities of the now war-ravaged Gaza Strip."It's a Gaza we no longer know. A joyful Gaza, one full of hope, connected to the world, with trains and an airport," said his grandson, who has curated a show of his work in France's southern city of Marseille.
Djeghalian survived the Armenian genocide of 1915 -- a term strongly denied by Turkey -- then settled in Gaza, opening the city's first ever photo studio in 1944.He refused to leave, despite the recurring conflicts hitting the small territory wedged between Egypt and what became Israel in 1948, spending four decades capturing images of the Palestinian society that had adopted him, up until his death in 1981.Some 300 of his surviving photographs are on show in Marseille until September.- 'Diverse society' -In one image, children have clambered onto each other to form a human pyramid in the courtyard of a school for Palestinian refugees displaced after the creation of Israel.In another, women with voluminous hair blowouts pose smiling next to a sewing machine.In a third, French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir have just stepped off a small propeller plane.
