During May 2002, a “Memorial Exhibition” titled 100 Shaheeds, 100 Lives was held at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut. The exhibition was planned to coincide with the fifty-fourth anniversary of the Nakba on 15 May. Despite severe restrictions on leaving the OPT and entering Lebanon, exhibition organizers had brought the artefacts – which consisted of objects belonging to and photographs of the first 100 martyrs of the second Intifada – from Ramallah to Beirut. The Ramallah organizer of the exhibition was the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre; its Beiruti counterparts included the Arab Resource Centre for Popular Arts. The 100 martyrs were the first 100 casualties of the al-Aqsa Intifada killed by Israeli gunfire during protests, stone-throwing, in suspicious circumstances, or as bystanders.

The exhibition of quotidian objects belonging to the deceased was accompanied by a sophisticated modern arts exhibition, a concert, and a film festival. The attendees – particularly on the opening night when a Palestinian singer from Ramallah was set to appear – represented a wide social spectrum: Lebanese leftists of all sectarian backgrounds, Lebanese Islamists, middle- and upper-class assimilated Palestinians, Lebanese and Palestinian intellectuals and artists, international activists, and last but certainly not least in numbers, Palestinians from the camps in Beirut and further afield.