From the Frontlines of Gaza to the Runways of New York: An interview with MERHAN KELLER

Merhan Keller is an activist and model. As an outspoken pro-Palestinian rights advocate, she has worked with the Egyptian Red Crescent to deliver humanitarian aid directly to Gaza under dangerous conditions. In this interview, she discusses how her career has been negatively impacted by her viewpoints, and she delves into what it means to live a committed life of direct action.

Interview by Logan Royce Beitmen

Hello Merhan, thank you for joining me.

I really appreciate it. I need some intellectual conversation for a change!

How was New York Fashion Week?

It was hectic. But this year, we were trying to do something different. Everyone is really fed up with being axed, fired, discriminated against, and not being able to find jobs because we’ve been speaking out about Palestine. So, I was like, hold on a minute, I've been doing this for years. Why am I begging other people to give me a job when I can create one for myself? So, I created my own company, and it was an amazing season. 

After being told there could be “no political statements” at a red carpet event, Merhan Keller and model Josue Daniel Sanchez did so anyway wearing keffiyeh-inspired designs by Lewis Beilharz

We also joined Electric Sunshine’s march because it was dedicated to Palestine, as well as Congo and everywhere that is touched by capitalism and occupation and land theft and resource theft.

Tell us about Electric Sunshine.

Electric Sunshine is owned by May [Mangkang] and App [Mangkang], who are like family to me now. They’re immigrants like me, and their label is amazing. It's attainable luxury. Everything is handmade in the store by May herself. She's always carrying her baby on her back—a typical working mom.

Unfortunately, they got preyed on by a guy named Tyler Grosso, a known scammer who approached them pretending to be an investor, then put out a press release claiming their brand was his. They reached out to me, and I was enraged. I wanted to help them, so I produced their runway show. That was one of the first projects for my new company.

Their campaign was called ImmigraNation. They wanted to challenge the immigration narratives that obviously are being badly used and abused in the election fight here in the US. The runway looked more like a protest march, because May had us march through the streets of New York, all the way to the Tenement Museum, to pay respect to the many generations of immigrants who have lived here. It makes me emotional. We distributed posters that said, “Do you know an immigrant?” “Do you love an immigrant?” That really resonated, because when you think about all the people you love, where are they from? They're from everywhere. Our lives would never be the same without all these people who have touched us.

Electric Sunshine ImmigraNation march. Video by Eloia @eloia_photo

You've spoken out about Palestine on social media for a long time. But last November, soon after the current war on Gaza started, you wanted to do more. So, you teamed up with the Red Crescent and went over and put your body on the line.

And I can’t wait to go back! I’ve been going every month, and actually, they just texted and said my new permit will probably get approved in a week, which is awesome because they had to stop the aid for a while. Israelis were blocking the entry points and attacking the trucks.

Tell me about the first time you went over.

When I first contacted the Egyptian Red Crescent about volunteering, Doctor Myrna, who was the head of the campaign, told me straight up that this was not an influencer moment. There are people bleeding out, and people are hurt. You need to actually do what you're supposed to be doing, and you’ll need to be trained. I really respected that. So, I flew to Egypt and took an intensive training course.

After my training, we had to drive seven and a half hours into Sinai. I asked our driver, because he was an elderly man, why were you here? And he said something that really sat with me. He said, you know, I got married, I had kids, my kids got married, and I've seen my grandchildren. If I get killed in there, it's better me than someone who's young, who hasn't started their life yet.

When he said that, it made me feel less scared, to be honest. I thought, this guy’s really figured it out. He’s willing to do the work. And this is the only option we have. We can’t sit around hoping some savior will come. Nobody’s coming. It’s up to us.

Merhan introduces her fellow Red Crescent volunteers

Red Crescent aid trucks lined up at the Rafah Border Crossing

Merhan describes the deliberately difficult process of getting aid through the border as crucial items are rejected or risk expiring

A view from the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza, showing an Israeli bomb exploding in the near distance (January 5, 2024)

Once, when you were delivering aid into Gaza, your team came under fire.

Yes, that was in January in Khan Younis. Normally, we wouldn’t be there. The Egyptian Red Crescent normally brings its aid trucks to the Rafah Border Crossing, and the Palestinian Red Crescent meets us there. We give them the aid, turn around, and go back. Then, they go back into Palestine to distribute.

This time, we waited at the border for over eight hours, and nobody showed up, so we had to turn around. When we got back to the control room, they told us the Palestinian Red Crescent didn’t have any ambulances, cars, or even donkeys to come and take anything from us.

So the solution was either to do nothing—just watch and wait—or, if we decided to go in, it would be at our own risk. We had to sign something basically saying that our families couldn’t sue them, that we did this willingly. I said, yes, we'll go in! But then I felt horrible, because I thought, what if I indirectly influenced my colleagues to say yes? What if they felt shamed into it because I'm a girl, and I said yes? Did they really want to go or not?

But we went in. There were four of us. We drove to the Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis. This is a clearly marked safe zone for NGOs. I was standing outside the hospital with Ali, one of my colleagues on the mission. He was smoking and talking to me when we heard something passing quickly in the air, and he fell.

They had deployed drones. But we were naive. We were thinking drones, like they're filming us, they're watching us. Nobody thought the drones were there to shoot actual live ammunition. It was really shocking. And it was a trap. The Israelis knew we were there. That's why they came. 

Where was Ali shot?

In his shoulder. They had to take him inside to try to help him while also not knowing if we should take him with us and leave, or if we should stay.

Because it turns out that relief missions are only allowed 25% casualties. Anything that exceeds 25% means your mission has failed, your people are now endangered, and you need to evacuate. So, if you have a mission like ours with only four people, 25% is one person. And any injury counts as a casualty. So, I figured they wanted to hit at least one of us, so we would have to leave.

Soldiers are shooting at us from all angles. They’re literally attacking with the intention to kill or inflict serious harm, although they had clearly marked this as a safe zone. And there’s injured children in there. Not like they care, but just to put things into perspective. And there’s cancer patients there who can’t get their treatments. Those are people who can hardly move or defend themselves or do anything at all. It’s just shocking, because every time you think you’ve seen the limit of cruelty and aggression, you find that, nope, it gets worse.

It feels like a movie, because there’s so much happening. You really have no time to assess anything. It's not like you're getting guidance from anybody. You’re all alone in there, facing Israel Occupying Force (IOF) soldiers with weapons.

You don't have anyone protecting you? No soldiers or bodyguards?

No, there’s no soldiers allowed, even on the border. Even the Egyptian border patrol has to stay on its own side.

How did you escape?

You know, everybody was running around. Chaos, obviously, is not something foreign to this area. So, I was banking on the fact that if we went out into the street, it would actually be safer. Because it's chaotic, people are running around, and also their own soldiers are on the ground, and they will be careful not to hit them by mistake. I was banking on that.

There was a child with us, a little girl. We didn’t know who or where her mom was. And I was like, okay, there’s no time to figure it out. So, I took her with me. I had to take a jacket from a colleague, a bigger size, so I could wear it on top of her so nobody would see her. And also to make sure she doesn't fall out, because I need my hands.

We got into these trash containers, because they’re metal. Like the ones on street corners. I was like, okay, if it’s chaotic, nobody's gonna notice if there's a metal trash container moving among the chaos.

The saddest part was that this girl—I was so scared she would cry and somebody would hear us. She did not. Children in Palestine know when to be quiet. And this, by itself, is heartbreaking. They are programmed differently. Not like any other child.

How old was she?

Just four.

She had already learned to be quiet.

Yes, very quiet. You see their eyes pop, and they’re in a fight-or-flight mode all the time. That's the default of their nervous system, not like any normal child.

So, we crossed the border, and the good thing in Egypt is if she's evacuated and she's underage and has any family left inside Palestine, even a distant relative, they’re allowed to exit Gaza to be her guardian. Thankfully, people from the hospital knew who the mother was, so we left her name at the border. Usually, people come to the border at 6:00 p.m. if they can make it. Some people don't have the means to get to the border, because they live deep inside Gaza. The mother came and found her name on the list, so she got to evacuate and be with her child.

So, you saved a child and also her mother.

Yes, but being over there puts these things into a completely different perspective. I met a young doctor at the hospital in Sinai who’s been there 24/7 since last October, doing reconstructive surgeries. But the problem is, there are too many people who need his help. So, he has to play this horrific, dark game of choosing who has more potential to live. He pulled me into a room once and said somebody in there literally has just a piece of skin attaching his foot to his leg. I can save his foot, but I just need more time. Imagine what kind of emotional burden that is on somebody, especially a doctor. Those are the conditions everyone is operating under.

So, it really makes you think, Am I saving? Am I not saving? Even the people who get evacuated, everyone thinks, okay, now they’re saved. No, they're not. They need a place to live, they need work, they need to eat. And they also have a lot of questions for us, like, Did you find anybody from my family? Did anybody find my kids? There’s still people under the rubble. We don’t know if they’re alive or dead. It's a horrible situation.

I'm amazed by the inner strength and courage you have to even do this work.

Is it? Or is it trauma? I really don't know. Because you're just born into the aftermath of the situation as it is. My parents tried to shield me from it. They wanted us to go to school and drink Starbucks and fit into society and have peace in our lives, because they didn’t. But as long as our faces look brown like this, we’re never gonna have peace. That’s the reality. It’s an ugly reality, but I can take it. Just like I accept the concept of death. It's part of this whole deal of being born.

Even though there's not peace in the world—and you’re confronting that reality directly every day—you seem to have discovered some kind of inner peace. I want to read something you wrote a couple months ago and posted on Instagram. 

You posted images of the ocean, and you wrote: Nothing puts life and death into perspective for me like the ocean. Nothing in sight for days but stretched waters. And nature being its kind yet cruel self. We don’t own anything, not even ourselves. Everything is temporary. From dust to dust we return, and nothing we can do but submit to fate and find comfort in faith. That really touched me.

I find the ocean so beautiful and poetic, and I like to swim in the deep ocean. You see nothing, just water extended in all directions. But then I wonder, Do I have the right to be there? Because I love sharks. I know everyone is terrified, but I love them. They're misunderstood because they're powerful, but they're not evil. So, if I get hurt or they end up eating me or something, is that on them, or is that on me? Because I'm in their environment.

You can’t blame a shark for being a shark, I guess.

Absolutely. I look at things from a practical perspective that’s more realistic than emotional, because the shark has no emotion toward me. But we share this planet, so we should respect each other. Who am I to decide I’m more important than him just because my species has opposable thumbs?

That’s why I don’t like large-scale fishing. You’re taking their food. This creature has been here longer than us. They witnessed this planet when it was nothing. Are we really killing them now by taking their freaking food? But nature is fighting back. You see orcas attacking boats. Every species does what it can to survive, and survival is key.

This is fascinating, because you’re describing the ocean like a war zone. And you were just talking about an actual war zone. Yet it seems like you’re able to find peace and serenity even in these places.

Yes, and it’s connected. Like, you can be in a war zone feeling unsafe and stressed out, and that's exactly how someone might feel swimming alone in a dark ocean, seeing nothing, because they sense the threat. So, silence and chaos are very similar. This planet teaches us that what we think of as opposites are not really opposites. Even death and life are interchangeable. They just feed off each other and continue this cycle.

Click here for Gaza donation and relief assistance information from the Egyptian Red Crescent.

Logan Royce Beitmen is a writer and curator.

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