Jul 8, 2025
This is a story about two Europeans who devoted their lives to the Palestinian cause and paid the ultimate price.
Francoise Kesteman was a French nurse who worked in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in the late 1970s and early 80s. She was a communist and saw the displacement of millions of Palestinians as a fundamental injustice that needed to be addressed. She joined armed Palestinian groups resisting the Israeli occupation.
Franco Fontana was an Italian photographer who cofounded a Marxist-Leninist political group in the 1970s and organised exhibitions to raise awareness of the Palestinian cause. As a photojournalist, he visited Palestine and Lebanon, where he also joined groups fighting to liberate Palestine.
Kesteman was killed in 1984 in a paramilitary operation in Lebanon. Fontana fell ill in 2015 and chose to return to a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, where he died and was buried, as was his dying wish.
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