�Make this the year YOU discover a new destination.�
That welcoming tagline serves as the opening title card to a 2-minute documentary that the legendary U.K. street artist Banksy posted to his website Wednesday evening. But in typical Bansky fashion, what follows is a an eye-opening short film, Welcome to Gaza.
A man�presumably Banksy�is seen traveling by car and then climbing through what he calls �a network of illegal tunnels� before entering Gaza. The camera homes in on children playing in the rubble.
�The locals like it so much they never leave,� text says over the screen, �(because they�re not allowed to),� followed by shots of IDF soldiers.
The �tourism� video includes a statistic on Operation Protective Edge, a military operation launched by Israel in 2014 that it claims leveled 18,000 homes. Also included is footage of drone strikes�accompanied by American voices�locals voicing their disapproval at the state of things, and footage of the notoriously mysterious street artist stenciling several works on rock walls in Gaza. Banksy�s publicist Jo Brooks has confirmed that the video, as well as the four new graffiti works unveiled in Gaza, are all authentic.
�Gaza is often described as �the world�s largest open air prison� because no one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons�they don�t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day,� Banksy wrote on his website.
The video ends by focusing on a message graffiti�d in red letters 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.�
�If we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless we side with the powerful�we don�t remain neutral.�
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