Against Genocide: Visual Storytelling for Collective Liberation
Visualizing Palestine Year in Review 2024
“The devastation we have endured will irrevocably shape our politics, intellectual frameworks, and approaches to resistance. It will also transform how we relate to each other and envision our collective path forward. Any meaningful discourse on Palestinian liberation must now center the reality of the ongoing genocide.” –Tareq Baconi, “The Palestinian Struggle: From Genocide to Global Realignment,” Al-Shabaka
On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice ordered the Israeli government to take “immediate and effective measures” to prevent genocide in Gaza. Instead, they intensified the assault on Gaza and broadened attacks across Palestine and the region.
A ceasefire finally began in Gaza on January 19, 2025, but we know that ceasefire is not synonymous with the end of genocide. As Palestinians in Gaza count and bury the dead and return to homes and cities in wreckage, the movement for Palestinian freedom is facing unprecedented repression, and Israel and its imperial accomplices continue to pursue an oppressive agenda across historic Palestine. In this context, we remain unshakably committed to nurturing narratives of revolutionary hope and solidarity, rooted in our understanding of Palestinian liberation as a decolonial struggle.
Throughout 2024, the Visualizing Palestine team dedicated itself to providing timely resources in response to the apocalyptic violence we were witnessing. We reached more people than ever with visuals documenting how Israeli forces made Gaza the deadliest place in the world to be a child, journalist, health worker, or aid worker, and imposed genocidal conditions of domicide, ecocide, mass displacement, starvation, dehydration, disease, and arbitrary abduction and torture on the population of Gaza as a whole. Beyond Gaza, we followed Israel’s expanding aggression, particularly in the West Bank and Lebanon. We built up our resources and capacity, engaging key partners to support action against genocide.
From a narrative change perspective, the events of 2023–2024:
1. Irrefutably exposed Israel’s state ideology of colonialism, militarism, and genocide to millions of people;
2. Illuminated the contours of global complicity and Israel’s relationship with imperial powers;
3. Solidified solidarity with Palestinians as an essential component of any framework for collective liberation;
4. Revealed the sobering limitations of international law and international institutions in securing justice for Palestinians and holding Israel accountable.
At the start of 2025, we face significant uncertainty, particularly in the face of rising repression of the Palestine movement, continued Israeli ethnic cleansing policies, and the complicity of governments like the U.S., Germany, and the UK in supporting Israeli aggression. Yet we remain focused on our 2024 promise of building a movement more powerful than our grief or fear. When the genocide is over, this movement seeks a transformation to a just future, not a reconstruction of the oppressive past. Thank you for being part of Visualizing Palestine’s community in this agonizing, mobilizing, and defining year of ongoing genocide.
Visualizing Palestine in 2024: At a Glance
- 24 new infographics
- 4 new interactive visuals, 1 interactive updated
- 5 visuals updated
- Published our first book, Visualizing Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation, with Haymarket Books, accompanied by 9 book launch events.
- Engaged 7 external information designers and 2 researchers
- Collaborated with 12 movement partners on 14 visuals
- 26.6 million impressions on social media
- 1.3 million reshares of our content on social media
- 277,593 followers of VP social media pages (31% increase over 2023)
- 2,471+ use cases of VP visuals in 105 countries (42% increase over 2023)
- 42 translated visuals
- 1,168 donors, including 740 active members (individuals who make recurring monthly or annual donations)
- Supported the following campaigns with visual resources:
- Banking on Solidarity campaign with the visual Citi: Banking on Genocide
-Not My Tax Dollars campaign with Fund Care Not Killing visuals
-Break the Bonds, and #NoNewBonds-Ohio with the Break The Bonds visual
Visuals and Themes
Responding to Genocide and Widening Israeli Aggression: Released 16 visuals and updated 4 visuals on this theme.
Israel’s Targeting of Children: Released 4 visuals and updated 1 visual on this theme.
Suppression of Freedom of Expression: Released 2 visuals on this theme.
Gendered Impact of Israeli Violence: Released 2 visuals on this theme.
Interactive Visuals: Released 4 interactive visuals, and updated one.
From Our Community
In 2024, we documented more than 2,471 use cases of our visuals by educators, activists, and advocates across 105 countries. Here are some examples of what they shared with us.
Institutional Updates
With the increased need for credible information and political education to mobilize against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Visualizing Palestine’s role as part of the movement for Palestinian liberation also expanded over the past year. In 2024:
- We launched our first book Visualizing Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation in partnership with Haymarket Books in early September, a multi-year project that finally came to fruition. Interest in the book exceeded our expectations, with more than 6,000 copies sold so far and several launch events that have taken place virtually and in person in Washington, D.C., Michigan, Boston, Philadelphia, Ramallah, Amman, and Dubai. The book received reviews in several publications, including but not limited to Countercurrents, The New Arab, Middle East Monitor, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, the Midwest Book Review: The International Studies Shelf, and Missing Perspectives.
- We launched a new website in April 2024, which includes new features, from searching and filtering our archive of visuals to an improved download process to an interactive impact page, and more.
- We worked with 7 external information designers on the development of visual resources, including Yara Ramadan, Majd Alrafie, Hadeel Saalok, Nate Wright, G. Laster, Habiba Maher, and Sara Sukhun.
- We worked with 2 external researchers on the development of research briefs, including an anonymous researcher and G. Laster.
- Maura James, VP’s fundraising manager’s role expanded to include book outreach activities. Maura’s role has been invaluable in the success of both VP’s look launch and fundraising initiatives.
- We welcomed one new member to our board of directors in 2024, Kavita Ramdas. Kavita is a globally recognized advocate for gender equity and justice and has held leadership roles with several respected women’s rights organizations.
“While we may feel helpless in the face of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, giving my time and attention to VP has allowed me to channel my horror, grief, and rage into supporting an organization that is focusing on the difficult, long-term work of shifting narratives to promote Palestinian liberation.” — Kavita Ramdas.
- We established a fundraising committee, whose members were instrumental in supporting VP’s end-of-year fundraising efforts.
What’s Next?
In 2025 VP will continue to contribute to the creation of narrative shifts that center Palestinian stories and experiences and the struggle for freedom from Israeli settler colonialism.
Priority themes in 2025 will include:
- Continued coverage of the ongoing genocide against Palestinians, its long-term impact, and regional implications.
- Highlighting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns and opportunities, including redeveloping and relaunching our Growth of a Movement Timeline, which documents BDS successes since the movement launched in 2005.
- Countering repression against the movement for Palestinian liberation.
- Challenging international aid as a means of control, including reflecting on a liberatory vision of recovery from genocide, and the role that international aid plays in facilitating or limiting that vision.
- Supporting students and educators in their efforts to educate, organize, and raise awareness on the root causes of oppression in Palestine, including by delivering a course on data storytelling at a U.S. university.
Financial updates
Highlights (2024)
- 51% of VP’s revenue came from individual donors:
-6% from one-time donors
-27% from Members with monthly or annual recurring contributions
-18% from Member Matchers who commit to supporting VP with a minimum of $5,000 annual contribution over three years - 1,168 individual donors contributed, including 740 Members and 15 Member Matchers
- The revenue and expense snapshots below cover the period of December 1, 2023 — November 30, 2024 (12 months). These figures are not yet audited. VP’s accounts are audited in March of each year.
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our latest updates and visual releases.
Please consider supporting our work to meet this moment of crisis with visual resources that contextualize Israeli colonial violence by becoming a member with a recurring monthly or annual donation, or by making a one-time donation.
THANK YOU FOR BEING PART OF VISUALIZING PALESTINE IN 2024!
Questions? Reach out to us at data@visualizingpalestine.org
