Graffitist Banksy unveils giant kitten art in Gaza video tour

Renowned British graffiti artist Banksy, who still has not revealed his identity, released a two-minute video shot in a ravaged Gaza on his website Wednesday, Time magazine reported.

“Make this the year you discover a new destination,” it says in the style of a promotional tourism video.

(Photo courtesy: banksy.co.uk)

However, it instead offers viewers a sense of what Gazans face every day “well away from the tourist track.” The video pans out to show rubble, destroyed homes and tunnels as well as children in the midst of the wreckage.

The video then spotlights Banksy’s latest graffiti works in Gaza: a kitten in a pink bow, a parent grieving a child and children swinging from a surveillance tower.

“A local man came up and said ‘Please — what does this mean?’ I explained I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website — but on the internet people only look at pictures of kittens,” Banksy writes.

(Photo courtesy: banksy.co.uk)

“The cat found something to play with,” a Palestinian man says during the video. “What about our children?”

The summer of 2014 saw Israel orchestrate Operation Protective Edge against Gaza, in response to Hamas rockets.

The video ends by focusing in on a scrawled message on a wall:

“If we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless we side with the powerful—we don’t remain neutral.”