“He who wants to write for Palestine, and he who wants to paint for Palestine, knows his condition: dead.” With these words, the beleaguered Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali predicted his death.

Naji Salim Al-Ali was walking on Ives Street in Knightsbridge, central London, heading to the office of the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Qabas, on the afternoon of July 22, 1987, when he received several bullets, one of which hit his neck and another hit his lower right eye. He fell unconscious and remained in a coma for about 37 days until his death was officially announced on August 29.

Although 34 years have passed since Al-Ali’s absence, the identity of the unknown person who shot him has not yet been announced, and the link between being forced to leave for London in 1985 and the assassination has not been revealed, even after the British police opened the investigation again in 2017.

Handala.. Khaled's 10-year-old child

Naji Al-Ali used his talent to monitor political changes, serve his Palestinian cause, and expose the occupation.

He never forgot his relationship with Lebanon. Naji left for Lebanon after the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948, at the age of ten, and then settled in the "Ain El-Hilweh" camp.

And when the Israeli occupation invaded Lebanon until he reached Beirut in 1982, during this period his famous painting “Good Morning Beirut” came out, where 10-year-old “Handala” presents a rose to Beirut, which he painted in the form of a beautiful girl sticking her head out of a crack in a broken wall while sadness is covered her eyes.

In the wake of the recent Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip in May 2021, the character of "Handala" reappeared in the public sphere as a symbol of objection to what happened, and "Handala" returned in an Egyptian football match, as Ahmed Hamdi Abdel Qader, a player for the Smouha football team, raised The foot is pointing up, putting his left hand behind his back, as Handala appears in his famous pose, which was drawn by Naji Al-Ali about 25 years before the player's birth, which shows how Handala settles in the conscience of those interested in the Palestinian cause and how it has remained a symbol of it despite the succession of years.

How did Handala live?

Although Naji Al-Ali created several characters in his paintings to criticize a number of Palestinian and Arab leaders, such as Fatima Al-Arabiya, and the character of the long-nosed occupation soldier, who appears confused in front of a small stone in the hand of a Palestinian child, all of them did not achieve the fame of "Handala".

The character of Handala first appeared in Naji Al-Ali's paintings in 1969 in the Kuwaiti newspaper "Al-Seyassah" (social networking sites)

"Handala" is a 10-year-old child, who remains at the age of ten no matter how many years pass, and he will not grow up until he returns to Palestine, and despite his frozen age, his ideas and ways of objection were developing with the development of political events. He appeared for the first time in Naji Al-Ali's paintings in 1969 in a newspaper. Kuwaiti politics.” He turned his back to the world with his hands behind his back in the wake of the 1973 war, rejecting American policies to settle the Palestinian issue.

Handala represented a microcosm of his betrayed creator, and preserved his survival in the conscience of those preoccupied with the Palestinian cause, as Omar Handala is the same as the age of Naji al-Ali when he left Palestine. the world.

Al-Ali took him as his signature on his paintings, and the character won the praise of the Arab masses, and became a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness.

Naji Al-Ali said about him, “Handala was born at ten years old and will always be ten years old. At that age he left Palestine, and when Handala returns to Palestine, he will be after ten years of age and then begin to grow up. The laws of nature do not apply to him because he is an exception, just as losing the homeland is an exception. ".

As for the reason for wrapping his hands, Naji al-Ali said, "His shoulder was shouldered after the October 1973 war, because the region was witnessing a comprehensive process of subjugation and normalization, and here the boy's shouldering was an indication of his refusal to participate in the American settlement solutions in the region. He is rebellious and not a normalizer."

This position contributed to the consolidation of "Handala", expressing the position of many on the developments of the Palestinian cause. The child is handcuffed and present in all that is new on the Palestinian cause. He has appeared expressing his rejection of all that is happening in terms of settlement solutions, agreements and regulations, internal policies, and foreign policies. .

Hanzala has another face that represents the Palestinian child who represents the backbone of the Palestinian cause and its people, a child who faces the occupation and faces the difficulties of life under the rule of the occupation. .