UN turns Gaza shelling into theater

There is nothing ordinary about this advocacy campaign for a large UN institution. The lights dim before a packed audience and a slideshow begins: images of Gaza in conflict, people fleeing their homes, buildings on fire. Then stands Chris Gunness, the chief spokesman of the UN Relief and Works Agency, the organization responsible for the support and welfare of Palestinian refugees. "I am a warehouse," he says. "I am a dying warehouse, the victim of an excruciatingly painful fire that burned me down." It is the start of a remarkable 20-minute, one-man play intended for Israeli audiences but so far unwelcome in Israeli theaters. It tells the story of the main UN warehouse in Gaza, a storage point for food and aid for a million Palestinians, and how it was hit repeatedly by Israeli artillery shells, some loaded with white phosphorous, during the Gaza war–how it was set ablaze and burnt to the ground. This is a story that "until now has remained buried, untold," Gunness said at the debut performance of his show at the French Cultural Center, east Jerusalem, on Wednesday night. His play, Building Understanding: Epitaph for a Warehouse, is a challenge to the criticism the UN has faced within Israel. Many aid organizations and human rights groups highlighting the Palestinian cause have faced increasing opposition since the war, as has Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who authored a highly critical UN report accusing Israel and Palestinian militant groups of war crimes.