The exhibit was intended to show the ‘diverse and rich’ history of Palestinian peoples
Photo by Declan Snowden, exhibit photo via KARAMA.
On Oct. 20, Victoria Healthcare Workers Against Genocide (HWAG Victoria) and UVic’s Critical Muslim Studies Hub held a photo exhibit on campus to showcase “the long, diverse and rich histories, cultures, and everyday life of Palestinian peoples.”
HWAG Victoria is an advocacy group open to all healthcare workers — including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and more.
The group spawned from the weekly marches to the B.C. legislature for Palestine, said founding member Dr. Patrick Slobodian. Slobodian and his peers started the group because “healthcare workers are generally highly respected and trusted,” he said, and because the healthcare infrastructure in Gaza has been targeted by Israeli forces.
A July 2025 news article released by the United Nations said Israel has killed “at least 1, 581 health workers” since Oct. 7, 2023. Another United Nations news article released on June 23, 2026, says Israel has killed over 20 000 children (and injured over 44 000) since Oct. 7, 2023.
The release says Israeli security forces “deliberately targeted and killed” Palestinian children.
The exhibit featured 28 photos on display, and a photobook of over 200 images, depicting a diverse range of decades, peoples, and industries. The photos were sourced from KARAMA, a San Diego-based organization which created the Palestine Photography Project. The project seeks to challenge the notion that Palestine was “a land without people,” but rather “a place with a sophisticated culture populated by people with a clear sense of self-identity.”
“Our intention in purchasing those photos … was to dispel the founding myth … that the state of Israel was a land without a people for a people without a land,” Slobodian said.
The idea that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land” was foundational to Christian Zionist and early Zionist leaders since the 19th century.
Photo by Declan Snowden, exhibit photo via KARAMA.
The collection documents Palestine’s history. One photo depicts the printing of some of Palestine’s first stamps in 1920. Several photos in the collection showcase the various communities and organizations that existed in Palestine prior to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967, including a photo of a Muslim orphanage band and a photo of the Arab Women’s Union of Ramallah.
Other photos in the collection show protests against Britain’s occupation of Palestine.
Outside the exhibit was a poster board, featuring photos of several doctors who had been detained by Israel since Oct. 7, 2023. One doctor shown on the board, pediatrician Hussam Abu Safiya, has been detained in Israeli jails since Dec. 27, 2024 — almost two full years.
Amnesty International reported that Safiya is being detained in Rakevet detention center, “an underground section beneath the Ayalon prison complex, where detainees, mostly Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, are subjected to systematic torture and inhumane treatment.”
British Columbia has seen the formation of other advocacy groups consisting of healthcare workers, such as BC Physicians Against Genocide. Though the groups are independent from each other, they often work together, including for a screening of From Ground Zero: Stories From Gaza that raised almost $10 000, Slobodian said.
“Early on [in the marches for Palestine], people would say … ‘Well, really, 200 of you marching down Government Street on a rainy Sunday in January. What possible use could that be to anybody?’” Slobodian said. “What’s the alternative? Do nothing? Historically we know how that goes.”
Since their formation, Victoria HWAG has also sponsored Dr. Deirdre Noonan, an orthopedic surgeon who has worked in Gaza five times since Oct. 7, 2023.
“There’s a sense of solidarity and [of] being able to grieve together,” Slobodian said.
