Singer turns her modest act into a stirring breakthrough

Gaza City, Gaza Strip

RAWAN Okasha pushed aside the black curtains, her large kohl-lined eyes scanning the two-storey theatre packed with people. Then she did something that no other woman has done in public in Gaza for nearly a decade: She began to sing.

"Palestine is for its people," she crooned. "And the houses they destroyed," referring to decades of conflict with Israel, "will be rebuilt by the intifada."