Jenin, Jenin

Jenin, Jenin (2003)

جنين، جنين

A heart-rending depiction of the aftermath of Israel's destruction of Jenin refugee camp in 2002, where every scene and interview is profound and distressing in equal measure.

Date of release
2003-03-03
TMDB
7.4 / 10 (15)
Runtime
54m
Genres
Documentary
Director
Mohammad Bakri

Interesting facts

Jenin, Jenin is a 2002 Palestinian documentary film directed by Mohammad Bakri. It portrays what the director called "the Palestinian truth" about the Battle of Jenin, between the Israeli army and Palestinians in April 2002.

Background

A month after 18 Israelis had been killed in two separate attacks, and a few days after a suicide bombing in Netanya killed 30 and injured 140, the Israeli Defense Forces called up 30,000 reserve soldiers and launched Operation Defensive Shield.

During Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invaded a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin. The Israeli military refused to allow journalists and human rights organizations into the camp for "safety reasons" during the fighting, leading to a rapid cycle of rumors that a massacre had occurred. Jenin remained sealed for days after the invasion.

Bakri participated in a nonviolent demonstration at a checkpoint during Israel's 2002 invasion of Jenin and was shocked when Israeli soldiers shot at the crowd, wounding a fellow actor standing next to him. He tells audiences that this experience inspired him to sneak into Jenin with a camera and ask residents, “What happened?” The result was the documentary Jenin Jenin, featuring a range of testimonies which suggested that a massacre had indeed…

Human Rights Watch investigations found "no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scale extrajudicial executions by the IDF in Jenin refugee camp" although they reported that "Israeli forces committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes". The accusation of war crimes was repeated by Amnesty International.

The film title referenced Palestinian taxi drivers calling "Ramallah, Ramallah, Ramallah", or "Jenin! Jenin!" to Palestinian workers and travellers moving through Israeli checkpoints. Bakri dedicated the film to its producer, Iyad Samoudi, who was killed by Israeli soldiers, at al-Yamun in the Jenin Governorate of the West Bank, shortly after filming ended. The IDF said that Samoudi was an armed member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

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