After rescue, Gaza's only grand piano makes public comeback

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The only grand piano in the Gaza Strip was played in public for the first time in a decade on Sunday — following a complicated international restoration effort to fix the instrument after it was nearly destroyed in an Israeli airstrike.

Some 300 fans attended Sunday's performance, staring in awed silence as Japanese and local artists performed for them. For many, it was the first time they had ever heard a piano performed live.

"Playing this piano is feeling like playing history," said Japanese pianist Kaoru Imahigashi. "It's amazing. I felt the prayer of peace for many people."

The piano's story goes back many years, mirroring in many ways the story of Gaza.

The Japanese government donated the piano some 20 years ago, following interim peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians. At the time, Gaza was envisioned as becoming the Singapore of the Middle East.

Fayez Sersawi, a Culture Ministry official, said he was responsible for receiving the piano, which was placed at a large theater in the newly built al-Nawras resort in northern Gaza. He said music festivals were a regular activity before the beginning of the second Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in 2000.

In 2007, the resort closed the theater and the swimming pool and scaled down most activities after Hamas, an Islamic militant group, took control of Gaza by force after winning legislative elections. Under Hamas rule, many forms of public entertainment, including bars, movie theaters and concert halls, have been shuttered.

An ensuing IsraeliEgyptian blockade, meant to weaken Hamas, and severe damage after a three-week war with Israel in January 2009 closed the resort altogether.

The piano was silenced and sat unused until 2014, when an Israeli airstrike during a third war with Hamas destroyed the al-Nawras hall. The piano was miraculously found unscathed, but rickety and unplayable.