For people in the Gaza Strip, simple modern-day pleasures are considered far-fetched luxuries. Watching movies is no exception.
On Saturday, August 26, hundreds of Gaza residents went to the cinema for the first time in three decades.
Some 300 people, both men and women, gathered in Gaza City's Samer Cinema for a one-night screening of the film Ten Years, a feature-length film about Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
There are currently no operational cinemas in Gaza, which is home to some two million people living under an Israeli blockade.
Samer Cinema, the oldest in the strip, was built in 1944 but shut down in the 1960s. Other cinemas in the city remained open until the late 1980s during the first Palestinian Intifada.
In 1995, calls for the reopening of cinemas were "were met with grenade attacks by radical Islamists," according to The Independent, in reference to a fire at one cinema in 1987 for which radical Islamists are believed to be responsible.
"The rest of the cinemas were scared to show films after that," Ghada Salmi, an organizer, told The Guardian.
Inside the city, Hamas implements conservative Islamic views, so movies require approval before being screened, even privately.
Prior to Saturday's screening, movies had occasionally been screened outdoors or in private halls.
People sat out despite the hot and humid evening
The film's actors did not miss out
Actors who appeared in the film attended the screening.
"We as Palestinians need to have a large space for art," actor Nermin Ziara told the Agence France Presse (AFP). "Society needs to develop through films and documentaries."
Ziara added that she does not "think there is a problem with opening a cinema with Hamas as it is a place of art".
"We need to live like humans, with cinemas, public spaces and parks," said Jawdat abu Ramadan, an attendee
Cinemas in the time of occupation
