Oren Ziv was among the first to photograph dead bodies piled up on Israeli streets. “We saw bodies around as you see in Ukraine,” he recalled. Despite the shock, fear, and anger, many families don’t want their pain to be used by politicians to call for revenge, he added.
“Revenge, occupying Gaza, erasing Gaza – we're hearing a very extreme discourse in Israel, not only from the right but also from the centre, from the left,” he said. “Many people are obviously and understandably angry and terrified.”
Ziv is a photographer at +972, an Israeli magazine. He has been taking pictures and covering wars in and around Israel for the past two decades, but what began last Saturday was something completely different.
“I've never seen something like this on the Israeli side. The people I talk to in Gaza, they say they also don’t remember something like that, even inside Gaza,” he said.
During the interview with LRT.lt, Ziv was forced to run for cover as the sirens warned of mortar and rocket strikes from Gaza. In a conversation permeated by wind gusts in the fields outside Gaza, Ziv talks about whether the conflict has reached a point of no return.
What reaction did you have as a photographer, as an Israeli citizen? What was the reaction of other journalists and reporters when everything began?
From the first hour we've been here, we understood this is something different, something we haven't seen before. I don't think we could imagine that the militants from Gaza could [enter Israel] – the wall here is one of the most expensive border walls in the world. [...] But there is no answer yet as to how they managed to infiltrate and just enter with barely any reaction from the Israeli side.
There are many reasons for that. One is that Israel sends a lot of its forces to the West Bank to maintain the Israeli occupation, to maintain the settlers there. They had fewer forces here [near Gaza] because they didn't think there would be any threat.
In the first hour we arrived, we understood the situation was very chaotic. There were many rocket attacks in the beginning in Ashkelon [in southern Israel]. The firefighters and the emergency services couldn't deal with all of them. There was also no [mobile] reception, so we didn't get all the reports of what was happening.
We saw bodies around, as you see in Ukraine; it's not something typical to see in Israel even when there are different attacks. Usually, the emergency services react very fast, they are very trained here.
We, a group of journalists, were attacked and shot at by Palestinian militants that were inside Israel. Slowly we understood that this was something different, another kind of attack that we hadn't seen before.
According to eyewitnesses and the people we spoke to, it took long hours and even days for the Israelis to retake the villages and the army bases to gain full control over southern Israel and clear it from Palestinian militants.
In the last days, we were able to enter some of the communities that were attacked and other villages. Unfortunately, the scenes were very difficult, very horrific attacks against civilians.
On your Instagram, you shared links to photographers now working in Gaza. How important is it to see what’s happening there now?
Israelis cannot enter Gaza, but, at the moment, the international press also cannot enter Gaza. It's completely blocked and sealed.
I have covered this issue for many years, and I work together with Palestinian photographers and reporters in Gaza, it's always important to us, even in this situation, a very horrific situation on the Israeli side, it's very important to bring the full context and not to justify any crime against civilians, men, women, and children.
I talked to some families of the kidnapped people and they say the crimes that were committed by Hamas here in Israel do not justify any actions against civilians or innocent people in Gaza.
And they say, and I'm quoting the people who lost their loved ones or their loved ones were kidnapped, that revenge won't bring them back. We need a solution that will keep everybody safe.
Revenge, occupying Gaza, erasing Gaza – we're hearing a very extreme discourse in Israel, not only from the right but also from the centre, from the left. Many people are obviously and understandably angry and terrified.
But for me personally and also for the people I speak to, it's very important to understand what's happening on the other side. The Gaza Strip has been under siege for 70 years, Israel and Egypt block it from all sides and it is described as an open-air prison. The conditions daily there are very harsh, but in the last week it's become unbelievable and unliveable.
You are at +975 mag, which aims to give a platform for various voices. What’s the reaction to your work in Israel?
It's not easy, I have to be honest. There's a lot of hate speech and anger and some of it can be understood. Although it's very complicated and very sensitive, we insist on showing all sides and all the aspects. We cover both the horrific situation in the Israeli villages that were attacked, but we want to make sure that this is not a justification to commit crimes against the innocent Palestinian people.
It's very hard, delicate work. We publish in Hebrew for the Israeli public and in English for the international community. It's not easy as we also have friends on the other side, we have friends and family there.
At this point, we also try to give a stage to the different voices that are not part of the mainstream [discourse] and are calling for a different approach from the government despite the harsh situation.
Israelis are talking about the Holocaust, while Palestinians are mentioning the Nakba – the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948. Why do you think this imagery is being brought up?
I think it touches on a lot of harsh points. When the Hamas militants from Gaza enter and massacre people in their beds – it's not a small number of people, we are talking about almost 1,000 civilians – it touches on a very sensitive point for Jewish Israelis and it reminds them of history.
For Palestinians, when you see the Israeli army ordering to evict Gaza and people taking their belongings and leaving, it's also a very hard reminder. These are two things we saw in history.
Unfortunately, this is something that we and many other people have been warned of – the extreme right-wing government in Israel is bringing us to a catastrophe because they have a goal.
We're seeing in the West Bank extreme settlers taking advantage of the situation, pushing Palestinian communities from their villages. And this is not in Gaza, it’s in the West Bank without a direct connection to what's happening in Gaza.
Inside Israel, right-wing politicians are taking advantage to silence any political criticism, especially Palestinian voices inside Israel, [as well as] professors, academics, teachers, activists, and journalists.
We saw calls to fire people, and protests under journalists’ houses, it’s part of a full campaign to silence any criticism of the government. It was a disaster for Netanyahu because this happened under his government.
Have we reached a point of no return with the violence?
I've never seen something like this on the Israeli side. The people I talk to in Gaza, say they also don’t remember something like that, even inside Gaza.
And I'm always asking myself, can this be fixed? It's so traumatic and so sad and painful and, unfortunately, it’s not something I can answer immediately because we are still in the middle of the events.
What does give me some hope is to see the Israeli families, at least some of them, [...] saying that they don’t want the government to use their name, the names of their loved ones, to take revenge and to create more violence.
[Of course] it’s over 200 people who were kidnapped and over 1,300 civilians and soldiers killed and murdered, you cannot generalise it to one message.
I do hope that [after] this really low and painful point we can start thinking about a new and better future, but it will take years. It’s a very traumatising event for both sides.
How do you see your future and your role as a photographer in such an environment?
It’s very hard, I have to be honest. [...] You have to be very sensitive and very careful.
In the first days or weeks, I didn’t really think about what the photos could be used for. I just understood it’s a historical event and it has to be documented. I was running around different places trying to document as much as possible.
Now that the situation is a bit more stable on the Israeli side, I’m [...] starting to do more in-depth stories, talking to survivors, going back to communities, and also trying to understand how people can rebuild their lives, but not only on the personal level but also on the collective level.
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