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Israeli jenin film { July 25 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-War-Diary.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-War-Diary.html
July 25, 2002
Israeli Soldier's Film Tells Grim Tale
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:02 a.m. ET
JERUSALEM (AP) -- For days, a young Israeli reserve soldier, Eli Zohar, couldn't cry. He had just lost 13 friends in an ambush in a Palestinian refugee camp in the northern West Bank, but he couldn't risk being shot by a sniper while searching for a quiet place to grieve.
``I've been walking around with a heavy load on my back.'' Then he says: ``We lost.''
It's one of the opening scenes in ``Jenin Diary: The Inside Story,'' about a battle in April. The documentary was screened at Jerusalem's international film festival this week before a sold-out crowd of 400 people.
The 72-minute documentary, filmed by reserve Sgt. Gil Mezuman with a hand-held digital camera, shows the confusion, anger and sadness of a group of reserve soldiers mobilized to fight in the Jenin refugee camp, where an eight-day battle in dark, narrow alleyways killed 23 soldiers and 52 Palestinians.
It was part of a large-scale Israeli incursion into the West Bank that began March 29 after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 29 people at an Israeli hotel on the eve of the Passover holiday.
No other up-close video footage exists of the fight, which became the nucleus of a storm of rumors about Israeli war atrocities and a massacre of Palestinian civilians.
Palestinian claims that soldiers slaughtered hundreds of civilians and used others as human shields were never substantiated by journalists or international aid agencies.
The film tells of the anguish of soldiers left to wonder why they were there, and if it all could have been different.
After the deadly clash six days into the fighting, Mezuman, a 30-year-old filmmaker, began working primarily as a cameraman instead of a fighter, interviewing his fellow soldiers and recording heated meetings between commanders.
``As a filmmaker, it was my way of dealing with the situation,'' Mezuman said in an interview before the screening Tuesday.
The Jenin refugee camp, a shantytown of a few city blocks on a sloping hillside, was a stronghold for Palestinian militants who lived among about 14,000 people, and source of many suicide bombers who had struck inside Israel, killing dozens.
When soldiers entered the refugee camp, Palestinian fighters were ready. Soldiers reported that everything was rigged to explode -- cars, computers, refrigerators, doorways, even a woman's purse.
``I was in the Gaza Strip. I was in Lebanon. But nothing was like that, nothing,'' Mezuman said.
Six days into the fighting, shortly after midnight, a group of soldiers moved into a narrow walled courtyard deep in the camp and were caught helpless under a barrage of explosions that sent buildings toppling on them. Sniper fire rained from windows and rooftops. Those coming to help them ran straight into the fire.
Thirteen soldiers from Mezuman's unit died in the ambush -- the deadliest single incident in years for Israel's army.
Palestinians note that they suffered heavy losses as well. A Human Rights Watch report claimed that 22 of the 52 Palestinians killed were civilians, including disabled people.
It said that some of the Israeli killings appeared to be war crimes, though Israel denies the charge.
Mezuman remembers identifying the bodies of the slain soldiers, staring into the silent face of his platoon commander, Dror Bar, a close friend who didn't know that his wife was just a few days pregnant with their first child.
The film shows the emotional toll on the other soldiers. A paramedic wonders if he could have done more. Another describes the fear of hearing Bar's last, frantic calls for help over the radio. One soldier says he sees the ghosts of his dead comrades.
At the end of this grim story, one soldier says into the camera: ``Nothing in this world is worth dying for. Personally, I'm finished with the army.''
A final scene shows two men cleaning blood from the guns of the dead.
``It's amazing how the blood doesn't come off,'' one of them says. ``You really have to scrub.''
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