On August 13, as a five-day ceasefire took hold in Israel’s 51 day war with Gaza, Max Blumenthal and I headed for the hyper-militarized border terminal at Erez crossing. We had no plans to make a documentary at that point. I brought along my camera and shotgun microphone to record interviews that I could transcribe for written articles. It quickly became clear to us that the harrowing testimony we were gathering in the miles and miles of rubble that spanned Gaza’s shattered border regions should be the basis for a documentary. So I returned to Gaza again and again over the course of the next two years, following up with the people I met during the war and encountering new people from all walks of life who told the story of life under siege and the systematic destruction of their society. Their voices comprise the narrative basis of our documentary feature, Killing Gaza.
This week, the Great March of Return will culminate on Nakba Day, the date marking the Palestinian observance of their systematic and ongoing ethnic cleansing by Israel. To crush the largely unarmed protests that have sent young men in waves towards the militarized walls that pen them into a giant cage, the Israeli military has waged its most violent and deadly campaign since the 51-day war. It was this demonstration of mass resistance that inspired the release of our documentary, Killing Gaza. You can view it here.
Killing Gaza from Dan Cohen on Vimeo.
Having spent extensive time in Gaza and familiarized myself with the warmth and creativity of its residents, I came to see it as the most misunderstood place on the planet. The warped Western picture of Gaza is the clear result of an intentional campaign by the Israeli government and a pliable media to demonize its two million inhabitants. With Killing Gaza, we aimed to challenge the view of the besieged coastal enclave as a nest of terror, or a cauldron of violent rage — a view put on display in the Vice News series on the 2014 war, “Rockets and Revenge.”
