Sinds september 2000 zijn er zo'n tweeduizend Palestijnen om het leven gekomen door acties van het Israëlische leger. Onder hen waren 350 kinderen. In de Engelstalige documentaire Gaza, the Killing Zone aandacht voor het leven van de Palestijnen in de Gazastrook. Ook worden de aanvallen onderzocht op westerlingen die tegen het Israëlische leger protesteerden. Een Amerikaanse vredesactivist werd doodgereden door een Israëlische bulldozer, een Britse activist werd in zijn hoofd geraakt en raakte in coma, en een britse cameraman werd doodgeschoten.
Panaroma: Gaza, The Killing Zone . België 2 (Canvas), 20.00 uur
Dispatches: The Killing Zone
Gaza
Published: 19-May-2003
By: Dispatches
While the world's attention has been fixed on the war in Iraq, Dispatches reporter Sandra Jordan and producer Rodrigo Vasquez risk their lives to reveal the shocking level of daily violence and murderous hate in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian civilians live under the threat of Israeli Defence Force attacks that do not discriminate between militants and children. Israeli setlers live in fear of suicide attacks.
But it is not only Palestinians and Israelis who are dying. Since the Gulf war, three Westerners have come under Israeli army attack.
An American peace activist was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer; a British peace protester was shot in the head by an IDF sniper and remains in a coma; and last weekend, a British cameraman was shot dead by the IDF.
Within hours of arriving Sandra and Rodrigo are shot at and tear-gassed by Israeli troops breaking up a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist crushed by an Israeli Army bulldozer two days before.
That sets the tone for a five-week stay in which they document the shooting by Israeli troops of the British peace campaigner Tom Hurndall, the death of James Miller, the award-winning cameraman who worked extensively for Channel 4, killed as he filmed Israeli troops bulldozing Palestinian homes, and the deaths and mutilation of many innocent Palestinians and Israelis.
The Dispatches team reveals what life is like in what has become a fully blown war zone. Their film captures the aftermath of an Israeli missile attack that assassinates a leader of the deadly Hamas group. Children who happen to be playing in the street nearby are killed or have limbs blown off.
They film the aftermath of an attack in which Israeli troops fire modified tank shells that explode in mid air above densely populated civilian areas and spray thousands of razor sharp darts, or flechettes, in an arc some 300 metres long and 90 metres wide. The team encounters sniper fire from Israeli watchtowers, and endures tank shelling alongside a class of terrified school children.
:zweep: