A Zionist Aggression (1973, Mustafa Abu Ali)

Following the operation against the Israeli sports delegation participating in the Munich Olympics in Germany in 1972, the Zionist entity launched retaliatory raids against the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon (specifically the village of Da’al in Syria and the Nabatieh camp in Lebanon) on September 8th, 1972. In reflecting the sheer barbarism of the Zionist aggression, legendary Palestinian filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali is compelled to reach for new filmic grammar to reflect on the brutality. This is a film haunted and haunting, with unfiltered images of death. Lifeless babies, features bloated. Children in hospital beds, limbs twisted, faces bruised. Agony. Skulls shattered. Hands crushed. Occasionally, lifeless eyes blink, a twitch of the hand brings something akin to hope – that life persists, life could persist. The image of a man buried alive by an explosion, his mouth agape, crammed with soil. As he is carefully dug out, we are left in strident silence to ponder the incongruous image, where the shovel is sought to excavate the dead. Yet these hands that excavate with care, that drag a petrified body out of the water, are hands attempting to give back dignity. Silence accounts for over half of the film’s soundtrack, as if no words are left to contend with the extent of depravity and destruction. The camera is no longer an eye but a part of the performance of war itself. The rolling camera crackles in dignified silence as funeral processions overwhelm the streets. From 1972 when this film was made until today, the blueprint of Zionist aggressions have never changed.