It's the most documented dispute in the world, says James Longley about the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but still Americans don't know what life is like for Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Longley set out in the winter of 2001 to record that life. The result is the disturbing and sometimes disorienting documentary "Gaza Strip," which was shown Friday night and can be viewed again tonight in University of Utah's Orson Spencer Hall Auditorium. The event includes a discussion with Longley.
Shot in a cinema verite style, without a narrator or a film score to soften and frame the ongoing tension, the film is an intense, sometimes jarring, 70 minutes of images and interviews in Gaza City and the Khan Younis refugee camp.
Longley, who does not speak Arabic and had never met a Palestinian before crossing alone through the Erez checkpoint in January 2001, spent three months traveling through the area with an interpreter and a camera.
"They have a sense that the world has forgotten about them," said the filmmaker, who found the Palestinians eager to talk to him about their lives. Many of the interviews take place against a backdrop of ambulance sirens, shelling and the rubble of homes razed by Israeli armored bulldozers.
"Gaza Strip" is not an attempt to present both sides of the conflict, to put it in historical context or to debate politics. Although another equally moving film could be shot in Israel, Longley makes no apologies for making a movie that is raw and single-minded.
The most compelling voice in the film belongs to 13-year-old Mohammed Hejazi. To be 13 in Gaza City means, more often than not, that you have watched your best friend shot to death by Israeli soldiers, have thrown rocks at those soldiers even though your parents forbade you to do so, and have come to the conclusion that the future is so bleak that death by martyrdom must be preferable.
According to Longley, all journalists covering Israel must sign an agreement with the Israeli government that any stories or film must first pass through Israeli censorship. The result is that journalists self-censor or have their material edited to take out elements that might be embarrassing to Israel, Longley said. Journalists who don't comply find that their access to further stories is limited or denied, he said.
It's a myth, he said, that parents send their children to throw stones or to be human shields. Israeli soldiers, he said, have the choice of using rubber bullets but often choose to shoot real ammunition at children. The Israelis, he said, are bulldozing homes and olive trees at night.
"Gaza Strip" documents Israel's first major armed incursion into the strip's "Area A," as well a gas attack that left residents of Khan Younis hospitalized with convulsions. The film is full of bodies of boys and men on stretchers, their bodies bloodied or covered with sheets, the prelude to mothers wailing and children staring glassy-eyed at one more dead relative.
"Gaza Strip" debuted in Seattle in March and is being shown mostly in university settings around the country.
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com