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Wednesday, May 26

Something On TV This Evening

I don't know if anyone else (in the UK) saw the programme on Channel 4 earlier, 'Death in Gaza', but it was mind-blowing.

Actually, disturbing is perhaps the better word to use to describe it.

It's one of those programmes which forces you to realise just how lucky you have it. I don't fear death every day; I don't desire to be a martyr; I didn't scout the streets at night for paramilitaries when I was 11; I haven't lost 8 members of my family to enemy gunfire; I don't have huge sections of my town bulldozed every day; I live a very comfortable life, a million miles away from the desolation and war that ravages these people, these children's lives.

And yet the sheer mind-numbing quality of these pictures, of these stories affects me. I just cannot comprehend how these children can be manipulated so as to desire martyrdom above all else in life. The main boy that the documentary followed, Ahmed, never spoke of dying, but always of "being martyred".

That scares me. To think that these children have been so fully initiated into this war, this Jihad, that they want nothing but a glorious death in battle or resistance against the "pigs" (Israelis), disturbs me greatly.

I don't know enough about the Israel-Palestine situation to have a fully informed opinion on it, but for it to have reached the position it now finds itself in, where children are willing, nay demanding, to die for the cause, seems so very wrong.

It's shocking and upsetting that it has taken the violent and unprovoked death of a foreign journalist for Ahmed (and his friend) to see sense and rebut their initial aim of martyrdom.

The footage of that event was also truly moving. We see James and two of his crew go out from the building they were in, in the dark, to inform the Israeli soldiers that they were leaving the area. They had a white flag, and bulletproof vests emblazoned with the letters "TV".

The most distressing aspect of the scene was that James was carrying a torch, shining its beam on the white flag as they walked towards the Armoured Personnel Carrier. We cannot see them as they move away from the camera, only the flag lit by the torch.

A shot rings out, the voiceover noting that they thought at the time it was a warning shot. A second shot pierces the darkness. The torch falls, its beam now shining along the ground on which it lands. James has been hit. All we can see in the darkness is the small disc of light where the torch now lies near James' side. The voiceover tells us that he has been shot in the neck, and died instantly.

The fear and adrenaline that is now running through you is amplified by a third shot and an altogether louder crack. This, we are told, was the bullet hitting the wall mere feet from the cameraman. The cameraman and producer dive behind the doorframe. No longer is the outside scene the subject of the camera's viewfinder.

Instead, we see the producer, on the other side of the doorway from the camera, attempting to peer out into the darkness and determine what exactly had happened.

That little 2 minute piece hit me like a ton of bricks. I've seen similar footage a few times on TV before, but that was especially real, especially vivid even in the near total darkness. The simple, monotone voiceover, devoid of emotion, seemed detached from the scene, from the raw fear.

You could still hear the shouting and the cries from the other 2 crew members that went out into the darkness with James, all the while seeing on screen the producer in the doorway, too afraid for his own safety to even poke his head round the doorframe in an attempt to see what was happening. The cameraman was no different. If someone with a gun has got your position in their sights, and has already fired at you, you are quite simply not going to stick your head out from cover.

I feel as if I am rambling, which is doing injustice to a fantastic piece of TV documentary. Channel 4 has excelled itself recently, documentary-wise, and this piece has been the best so far.

Of course, it all goes a little downhill on the quality TV front when they start the news series of Big Brother on Friday, but a little light entertainment can't hurt too much, can it?


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