Saving Gaza's Grand Piano Our World

to the children of Gaza. We were given exclusive access to film the

restoration of the piano and its first playing by some of

The astonishment was enormous when we came to this place

It's the only concert grand piano in Gaza,

somehow still standing in the shell of a bombed-out theatre.

In a place where some belief that music is forbidden by God...

We are teaching a new, whole generation music is something

Can a little piece of beauty be rescued from so much destruction?

Music might not build you a house or might not give you your loved

ones back, but it makes you feel better.

Through the squalor of Gaza, a young French piano restorer

This is what remains of one of Gaza's very few theatres,

half destroyed in last year's conflict with Israel.

But come inside, something even rarer has survived.

Claire is about to get a first look inside.

So it's not just a matter of the strings, it's a matter

of the dampers, it's a matter of the hammers,

So all this will have to be completely taken off.

So this is one of the worst you've seen?

The first task is to move the piano somewhere safe.

Now Claire, with two Palestinian apprentices,

must take it apart in this disused wedding hall and then rebuild it.

Claire was brought here by Music Fund, the Belgian charity

which helped discover the piano, in a project sponsored

The piano came here in the late 1990s from Japan.

But it ended up in the hands of hard-headed businessman Sa'ad

He bought it just over two years ago as part of the theatre and adjoining

leisure complex that he spent a fortune refurbishing.

And then the latest war with Israel struck.

500 here, and in the wedding hall, another 500.

His new restaurant block took a direct hit.

So this is the casing, the outer casing of the missile

itself with the number on it and everything.

This is actually part of the actual missile that hit this building?

Tell me, you'd spent more than $800,000 restoring the space?

Not about the money, this is my dream.

But despite all the damage, the piano survived unscathed.

Mr Herzallah's other business interest is food,

He didn't know the piano was unplayable when he bought it,

People have told me that they came to this theatre 15 or 20 years ago,

They say there was once music, comedy, even satire.

But in recent years there's been nothing like that.

The space, the public space for music, has gotten

Gazan society, always conservative, has become gradually more so.

Many here rejects music as haram, religiously prohibited.

And while there is no ban on music, since 2007, rule by the Islamist

militants Hamas has brought more cultural restrictions.

Of course that hasn't stopped big noisy weddings like this,

but people who love traditional celebrations don't always approve

So Gaza's only music school keeps a low profile

Behind the doors of the local branch of the Edward Said Conservatory,

they're patiently cultivating Gaza's top musical talent.

The administrator is Khamis Abu Shaban.

During an audit of the territory's dozen or so pianos by Music Fund,

Just one small difference between oud and guitar

This is something that you can't do on the guitar.

But his band, which he says was the first to play live in Gaza,

To perform on stage has been really difficult.

I don't speak about the people, normal people, I am speaking

We organised for a concert, we booked the place,

we printed the tickets, we started selling the tickets,

and two days before the concert they cancelled everything.

Obviously there's music, indeed, modern music,

in cafes, in restaurants, on car radio.

as you are performing it, it's different.

So they consider us extremists in what we do.

At our concert, girls and the guys, they stood up and they started,

I don't know, this was considered the strangest thing that

Like other musicians here, Khamis is doubly trapped.

Part of a besieged profession within a besieged territory.

It's a trap that Yelena Lidawi walked into from outside.

She came here from Russia when she married a Palestinian 15

years ago, long before this music school existed in a land then almost

on a special concert to mark its restoration.

All classical composters, they actually fought a lot and went

So if they did that, then we can do that too.

Meanwhile, Claire and her team are on day four of the rebuild.

They're changing not just the strings but also the hammers

Then after I'd just put it like I want, and it stays

Everything in the piano is like that.

LAUGHTER Do you think of it as something alive?

In just a few days' time, Sara and Yelena are going

I remember what it was before, and I also looked at strings.

Sara, what do you think, looking at this?

I'm kind of speechless and nervous at the same time.

I don't know what to say, to be honest.

For Yelena, it's an emotional moment.

She's the only person in Gaza with much experience

But in Gaza, where 100,000 homes were damaged in the last war,

when nearly half the people are unemployed, where most

of the water's undrinkable, isn't a grand piano abit a luxury?

Lucas from Music Fund doesn't think so.

For several years, his charity has been sending instruments to Gaza

What I'm confronted with is people being very keen on wanting

When you ask them why is it so important, some of them told me,

well, it mixes us human and makes us feel...

It is like a form of rebellion against being narrowly defined

as living beings who are only in survival.

And Lucas has found it's not just instruments that Gaza lacks.

I was astonished to find a grand piano in Gaza,

but I was also very astonished to never hear singing in classrooms.

Almost all the teachers, they were not able to sing.

I've never been confronted with this reality.

The rescue of the piano is part of a wider effort by Lucas's

organisation to bring music to Gaza, including getting schools to use

The piano is a symbol of that work, and its restoration has now reached

It is stabbing to kinds of aerate it?

And just show me one that hasn't been done yet.

And so you can hear, that's a much harder sound.

So, for you, what kind of character, through this process,

Are you taught to think about somebody?

Are you taking out your anger on somebody?

Mr Herzallah, the piano's owner, won't be here to see

He's going to China to buy a crisp frying machine

Still, he seems impressed by Claire's work.

Mr Herzallah has promised that music students will be able to use

the piano, but it has no permanent home.

He wants to put it here in the restaurant block,

but only when he's fixed the building up.

After the situation in Gaza has changed and there's no problems.

When will the situation here be stable?

In the meantime, Mr Herzallah has a lot of competing interests -

Is it strange to be thinking one moment about crisps,

about sweets, another moment to be thinking about a piano?

But it may be a long time before there are regular concerts here.

When you look around, the state of this place,

You really wonder how often, in practice, the piano

is going to be played, and how often the public

After ten days rebuilding, she's down to the final tuning.

About to be played for the first time in years.

Yelena and her pupils have all been preparing for this moment

But the star tonight is Sara, bringing, as she plays Beethoven,

some beauty that Gaza so badly needs.

At the music school we are teaching a new generation.

You have music on your body, in your heart.

It will spread the idea that music is not haram,

it is something that's really natural.

Over 2,000 people actually died during the last war.

I live at the seventh floor Of my building,

so I kind of see everything that is happening, and the bombs

so we just have to run for our lives.

Music might not build you a house or might not give you your loved

ones back, but it makes you feel better.

Overall the weather patterns remain pretty