When tragedy hits artists, artists create. So when the civilians of Gaza were consumed by the conflict that ignited between Hamas and Israel, Palestinian artists — documentarians and diarists, influencers and animators — set out to describe their experience on film.

“From Ground Zero” is a 22 short film anthology consisting of everything from video selfies to mini dramas, documentary slices of life and sliced construction paper animation, all of it immersing the viewer in the horrors of struggling to survive in a war zone that has been widely declared an Israeli genocide.

In “Selfie,” a young woman writes a letter on the beach, a note to family abroad, detailing the daily struggle to survive. She’s living in a tent, lining up for a toilet and air dropped food. She lost her father and 17 relatives in the incessant bombing and shelling.

A motif is introduced in this opening short film — the omnipresent whine of drones swirling over the tiny strip of land Israel seems bent on ethnically cleansing.

Our “selfie” creator notes how most of her fellow Palestinians don’t want to flee, determined “not to relive the scenario of 1948.” That’s when Palestinian refugees first fled Arab-Israeli conflict, and when Israel first established its land-grabbing policy against Palestinian natives, and “the Palestinian (refugee) Problem” first entered the world’s consciousness.

“No Signal” captures a man straining to find his brother, buried in his bombed-to-ruin house. He enlists his tiny niece to call her dad’s cell, Omar, to help him know where to dig. She says she got through to him, but then her phone died.

Documentary segments mix with docu-drama as children show off their arms — where their names have been written in Sharpie by parents afraid they’ll be lost and unindentified “martyrs” as a result of the constant air attacks.

“Soft Skin” shows a school class enlisted in cutting out shapes — buildings, birds and people — in colored construction paper, animated to life by the filmmaker.

The overall effect is a portrait in stoicism, people of all ages screaming and fleeing attacks, mourning those lost, then pulling themselves together, determined to ride this horror out, to not let their attackers grab more land via genocide.

“You cannot bear to hear the news” on the radio (in Arabic with English subtiles) one stoic survivor shrugs. “But you can’t not listen to it, either.” That elusive “cease fire” that never seems to come could arrive at any moment, now that Netanyahu’s political aims (regime change to one with “no Israeli accountability” promised in Washington, Iran and Lebanon baited into the conflict).

As a final act of defiance, this gripping collage of conflict has been selected as Palestine’s entry in the Best International Feature competition for the 96th Academy Awards. “From Ground Zero” is daring, smart and quite good. But will Hollywood dare endorse it?

Rating: unrated

Credits: Scripted and directed by Aws Al-Banna, Ahmed Al-Danf, Basil Al-Maqousi, Mustafa Al-Nabih, Muhammad Alshareef, Sls Syon, Bashar Al Balbisi, Alaa Damo, Awad Hana, Amad Hassunah, Mustafa Kallab, Satoum Kareem, Mahdi Karera, Rabab Khamees, Khamees Masharawi, Wissam Moussa, Tamer Najm, Abu Hansa Nidaa, Damo Nidal, Mahmoud Reema, Etimad Weshah and Islam Al Zrieai. A Watermelon Pictures release.

Running time: 1:52