24 March 2017•Update: 24 March 2017
By Hani al-Shaer
KHAN YUNIS, Palestine
A media production company in the blockaded Gaza Strip has duplicated famous districts -- built to scale -- of Jerusalem’s Old City for use in an upcoming television series.
Built by the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa television channel, the elaborate set is located west of Khan Yunis on land that had housed an Israeli settlement before Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
The set, which is now being used to film an Arabic-language television series (Bawabet al-Samaa or “Gate of the Sky”), includes a replica of the Old City’s iconic Bab al-Silsila (Chain Gate), which is located near the famous Al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to series director Zuhair al-Efrangi, Bawabet al-Samaa portrays the suffering of Jerusalem’s native Arab inhabitants at the hands of Jewish settlers and the Israeli occupation authorities.
The series, he said, “will show the oppression faced by local residents, how Israel tried to Judaize the city, and how the Palestinians resisted Israel’s aggression”.
Al-Efrangi praised the replica city, describing it as a “landmark” in the development of Palestinian cinema.
