IN January, 10 years ago, the ground invasion stage of Israel’s 2008-2009 assault on Gaza began. As with much else during what is known as Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli army exploited its massive military advantage to the full.
Palestinians in Gaza paid a devastating price. More than 1,400 people were killed in Gaza during the attack.
Among them, few suffered more than the Samouni family. Twenty-three members of the extended family were killed in two separate incidents on January 4 and 5, 2009. Twenty-one of those perished in a missile strike on a house they had been ordered into by Israeli soldiers on the ground. The UN subsequently deemed the killing of the Samounis to be war crimes.
The Samouni story is the subject of an Italian documentary by filmmaker Stefano Savona.
Samouni Road won international recognition at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it garnered the L’Œil d’or prize for best documentary. For Palestinians it has special resonance.
As the audience watched and cried, the sounds and images of war – the bombs and sirens, the pictures and footage of the dead and wounded – came, reviving the state of fear and anxiety the people experienced.
The film’s sequence of events follows the narrative told by survivors of the Samouni family.
The key scene is the first. Here, Amal Samouni, a young girl who was injured and lost her father and brother during the attack, tells the director, in response to a question about what happened, that she doesn’t know how to tell a story. Innovative and touching, Samouni Road has reached beyond the usual crowd of exiled Palestinians and Arabs and human rights activists.
It avoids rendering Palestinians solely as victims and brings Gaza to life through interviews and the use of animation in a manner rarely seen.
The simple words of ordinary people from Gaza are also extremely powerful. What better way to talk to international audiences than to do so directly?
B McKenna,
Overtoun Avenue,
Dumbarton.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here