Film: Hebron (Palestinian Territory)

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00:00:00: SOUND UP; [SOUND OF CALL TO PRAYER]
00:00:23: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: We were invited to the city of Hebron, in the West Bank by a human rights organization known as B’tselem. Our guide in Hebron was Oren Yakobovich. Once an officer in the Israeli army, Oren was so affected by the situation in the West Bank that he joined B’tselem. He brought us to Hebron to show us just how bad things had gotten. Following the Second Intifada, which started in 2000, the Israeli army had kept a constant force here, and restricted movement of Arab residents.
00:00:58: OREN: All right, you see we’re walking now where the first… can walk. Here first thing they can walk. And then they have to take a left. And they have a certain gate. And it’s not that it’s open from here out. In just one certain point that they go through and go back to H1, to where the rest of the Palestinians are living. You see how all these houses around? You see how everything is closed. So you can easily that there is hardly any life here.
00:01:31: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: The abandoned area is now being settled by what many call extremist Jews, who claim the land was stolen from them after the horrific massacre of 67 Jews in 1929.; OREN: You see the same system running all over the West Bank. You see separation of the population, you see restriction of movement.; CHARLIE: It's so weird.; OREN: And they are running free!; CHARLIE: I know. It’s so bizarre. These kids are going through like it’s just normal, you know?; OREN: [CAPTIONED] You know, the kids here are part of the game and part of the war. Because if you are a child and you’re below 13, you cannot, they cannot charge you with a criminal act. So what they’re doing, the father and the mother will say, Go. And they send them. The children will attack me.
00:02:14: MAN: They attack you?; OREN: Yeah. But the kids, you cannot do anything about them. So, you know, suddenly you’re getting hit on the ass or the on the leg or in the stomach, and you see the kids. That’s who are hitting you.; CHARLIE: The sad part is what you realize is, so the kids already at such a young age are being bred into believing this is a way of life.
00:02:34: CHARLIE: [NARRATING] The situation has grown particularly difficult in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron, where a Jewish settlement lays across the street from the last Muslim home in the area. Notice the caged house. The Abu ‘Ayesha family lives caged in their own home to protect themselves from the frequent harassment from the settlers across the street. We were fortunate enough to be invited in for tea, to hear the Abu ‘Ayesha story, and about the program developed by B’tselem to help the situation.
00:03:03: MAN: [TRANSLATION] God and our beloved prophet Muhammad taught us to accommodate our neighbors. He did not ask the neighbor if they were Muslim or Jewish or Christian. He made room for his neighbors and helped them. We are supposed to help the neighbors and generally take care of them. I have grapes, peaches and cucumbers in my orchards and I used to bring them home and would always share some with them. With these Settlers, other Jews would refuse to live with them. They would refuse. An official once asked me: “If there is peace, would you live with the Settlers?” And I told him that not even other Jews would live with these Settlers.
00:03:39: CHARLIE: Tell me—how did you come up with this program, “Shooting Back?”; OREN: ... a vision, or the idea of trying to create, we’re trying to bring stories from the West Bank of human rights violations to the media. To evoke for the improvement of human rights. And one day me and Karim was driving here, and Karim told, This family here, you’ve got to have a camera, because they are getting so much hassle here. Because they’re just, you know, a few meters from the Settlement and they’re getting so many problems, and food (…)’s been thrown on them, and they cannot walk in the streets. They had no proof. They had no proof. They know I have to prove it. Everybody’s saying, No, no, no, it’s not possible, it’s not happening, and nobody saw it.
00:04:22: OREN: And then I gave a camera to the family here, taught them how to film with the camera, a very simple digital camera, it’s not that expensive anymore, you know, you can give them away, you don’t have to be a professional, you’re getting a good shot, and I told them, Just shoot your life. Just shoot what’s happening with you, you know. And once in a while we come here and we see what they’re shooting, and we get a massive footage, documenting what’s happening with them. One of the famous ones was a clip, a ... clip, a girl from the family, she’s 16, was filming, when Settlers from here tried to lock her in the room here.; WOMEN YELLING:: [TRANSLATED, CAPTIONED] Close the door. Stay out of this!
00:05:00: OREN: She came in here and tried to close the door, and they’re shouting at her that she’s a whore, she’s a whore.; SCREAMING WOMEN:: Whore! Whore!; OREN: And I got back this footage by mistake. I came a few days after because of something else, I got the footage, I saw it, and it’s something that family didn’t even realize how extreme their life is. People living at the checkpoints near the wall, near, in refugee camps, they’re suffering from the invasion of the army on a daily basis, don’t realize how difficult their lives are. And people never, never saw how they’re living, because usually when filming crew comes, or when the news channels come, it will never be the same.; CHARLIE: Right.
00:05:37: OREN: Things will change. Everybody will act and behave differently. And with the camera, when they have the camera, and they have their own life and they can document—we have footage at night where soldiers are shouting and singing to them from here, [SOUNDS OF SHOUTING, ROCKS] we have footage of stones being thrown at the family, cursing at the family.; CHARLIE: Wow.; OREN: It's something that only the family can feel.; MAN: [CAPTIONED] And it’s very interesting to know that since we bring the cameras to the family, the violence of the neighbors, the Settlers, has gone down.; OREN: Reduced. Went down.
00:06:05: MAN: Because they are afraid of these cameras and the things that they produce, the children of the family.; CHARLIE: Well, yeah, I mean, if you think about it, you know, children are innocent. That’s what’s so sad about this whole thing, actually. It's like sweet kids right here. It's unbelievable. And they’ll be fueled with hatred, in no time.; OREN: Yeah.; CHARLIE: But when you hand a child a camera, he’s not going to try to manipulate anyone. It's like you said, he’s just playing, and showing his life. I mean, there’s no angle. I’m not trying to say anything’s right or wrong, it’s just what is. And so, wow, so you’ve been using a video camera, basically, as a first line of defense.
00:06:37: OREN: Exactly. Because this project Shooting Back, it’s the only weapon the Palestinians can fight with. I think in the end, we’ll achieve something.; [SOUND OF CALL TO PRAYER]; END OF FILM

Now Viewing: Hebron

In Hebron, a human rights organization called B'Tselem is giving children video cameras to document their daily lives, hoping that it will lessen violence between Palestinians and Jews.

: Palestinian Territory
Location:: Hebron
Date:: June 2007
Grants Awarded:: B'Tselem- The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories ($100,000)