A year after the October 7 attacks in Israel and the start of the war in Gaza, a new FRONTLINE documentary, tells the harrowing first-person stories of Israelis and Palestinians living through this unprecedented year of violence.
“A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians” provides firsthand accounts of the October 7 attacks and the year of bloodshed that has followed. The 90-minute documentary follows people in Gaza and Israel as they grapple with death, despair and ongoing trauma.
In the film, Israelis describe what it was like to experience the deadliest day for Jews since World War II as the October 7 attacks unfolded, with around 1,200 people killed, 5,000 injured and 251 taken hostage. And in Gaza, where more than 40,000 people have reportedly been killed in Israel’s retaliation against Hamas, Palestinians describe—and record—the horrors of large-scale devastation.
In kibbutzim targeted by Hamas, two Israeli mothers, Gali and Bat-Sheva, describe what Gali calls the “absolute terror” of family members being shot—including Gali’s young daughter, who died— and partners being taken hostage. Agam, then 17, recalls gunmen killing her father and sister, and then “dying from fear” as Hamas held her captive. And Shoham, a young man who was attending the Nova music festival targeted by Hamas, describes running for his life—and coming to terms with death: “I’ve finished the chapter and now the screen is about to turn off, like in the movies.”
In Gaza, Ibrahim, a former commercial photographer, turns his camera on the war even as his own family members, including a two-year-old girl, are killed, saying, “I’ve never seen anything like this, even in movies. Will we wake up the next day, will we have died?” Ghada, a young Palestinian woman, says she once dreamed of starting a solar energy company, but now, her dream is for her and her family “to make it out alive.” And Dr. Mohammad El-Ran, who worked at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital as it was repeatedly struck by Israeli fire during the campaign against Hamas, recalls learning on the job that 16 members of his family had been killed, and adjusting to a new and devastating reality: “People who are able to find their loved ones to bury them are the lucky ones.”
Through these individual stories, the film offers a devastating portrait of the conflict as a whole, and a profound look inside a cycle of violence and tragedy with no end in sight.
"A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians" will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS app starting October 15, 2024, at 7/6 p.m. CST. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel that night at 10/9 p.m. CST and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcast episodes and more related to A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians.
Guest:
Robin Barnwell is an award-winning director. He has worked across the globe in some of the most hostile and challenging environments, covering conflicts and wars, exposing human rights abuses for PBS Frontline, the BBC, and the UK's Channel 4 and ITV channels. For over four years, he served as a diplomat, working on peace-building and political affairs with the United Nations missions in Afghanistan and Sudan. Documentaries that he has directed, produced and filmed have won multiple awards and received numerous nominations, including a BAFTA and International Emmy. Robin was named 'Journalist of the Year' at the British Journalism Awards in 2019.
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This interview will be recorded on Tuesday, October 15, 2024.
