Planet Israel

Filming a documentary in Israel one year after the October 7th attacks

I met the film director Gillian Mosley a couple of years ago and we immediately clicked, notably over the situation in Palestine/Israel - a place which figured in both of our lives in very different ways.

When she asked me if I’d film her next documentary I didn’t hesitate. Having watched her first film on the topic - Tinderbox, I could see that from both a personal and intellectual level, she was not afraid to ask questions we’d all like to ask, but can’t.

Our filming trip in late September, early October 2024 turned out to be more intense than we’d imagined - coinciding with the barrage of ballistic missiles from Iran to Israel on October 2nd - and culminating in a Thelma and Louise style escape through the southern desert towards Egypt in a beige Fait Punto.

However, we look back now and realise that it was really the only week we could have got there, and captured candid and honest opinions from a broad range of Israeli perspectives.

For me, it was an opportunity and huge honour to film some of the greats: Israeli-British historian Avi Shlaim; British academic and historian, Lawrence Freedman; Israeli academic and professor of social-political psychology, Dr Dani Bar Tel; and an old acquaintance of mine Dr. Esti Galili-Weisstub, a prominent Israeli child psychiatrist who co-leads the Bi-National School of Psychotherapy in Jerusalem, training Israeli and Palestinian professionals to treat war-traumatized children.

And of course to work with Gillian, who personifies the unflinching question. She works without fear, hesitation, or attempts to avoid an uncomfortable truth. She has a resolute demand for answers, regardless of potential unpleasantness or hostile reactions, at a time when free speech is in peril across the globe.

Details on the film, which is out this week, are here, followed by a snapshot of our four days in diary form.

I’ve always wondered if an adventure becomes an adventure after you’ve done it.

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“After October 7th the world was shocked and sympathetic following the Hamas attacks in Israel. Within a few short months most of this sympathy had gone as the world recoiled in horror at the brutality of the Israeli response to these attacks, while few Israeli Jews seem to have noticed anything untoward. As a British/American Jew, Gillian Mosely wanted to know what has happened to make Jews, a people who have experienced oppression, othering, and genocide, exhibit such moral and humanitarian numbness. More widely, how does the moral disengagement that allows atrocities the world over, happen? Gillian thought she was making a film about trauma. But the reality turned out to be so much darker than she’d imagined as the mechanisms behind our disintegrating democracies and international laws are exposed.”

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“I have finally had opportunity to watch this brave and honest film, (showing) Gillian’s unsparing search for truth and for some path through and past this terrible tragedy. Please thank her for sharing it with me.” – Gabor Maté

The film ‘Planet Israel’ is released this Thursday at 6.30pm UK. You can buy tickets to watch it here:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/medialab/2116752

US download link: https://kinema.com/films/planet-israel-vh8gug

First London Screening: Curzon Soho, May 14th

Other release dates and locations check out the website:

http://www.planetisrael.co.uk/

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4 days in Israel, September/October 2024

Day 1: Saturday 28th September 2024

Flight to Tel Aviv via Moldova - there were no direct flights available. The plane was full of what looked like mercenaries - we don’t know where they were from - but all were dressed in fatigues with crew cut hair.

Arrive at Ben Gurion airport and try to stop groups of very sour looking Russian arrivals from queue barging. We explain to the guy on the desk we are coming to film in Kibbutz Urim on the Israel/Gaza border - he waves us through.

Find Budget hire car and drive to the southern Israeli city of Ashdod in a beige Kia Punto. Stay in a wierd hotel - me on sofa bed and Gillian in bedroom. Sleep alright and leave the next morning early.

Day 2: Sunday 29th September

Drive towards Gaza border and film general views. You can see glimpses of Gaza itself from the road. Impossible to imagine what it feels like to be in the wreckage of Gaza - only 2km away from the end of my zoom lens. My stomach physically pangs as I look through the viewfinder.

Nothing going on at any of the crossings into Gaza - and certainly no aid - deserted tank-like vehicles. Driving is abominable and angry on the roads. It’s warm and dusty. We film as much as we can to get the atmosphere.

We have lunch in an Aroma cafe - a delicious halloumi salad. The only other customers are cadets in their green uniform and guns. None of them look older than 20.

Arrive in Kibbutz Urim and meet and film Julia. She is lovely and has no bitterness about what the Kibbutzim in the area went through only 1 year ago. She does colouring in on paper to relax herself - the coloured pages are stuck all over the safe room which has a window and a flimsy door - it doesn’t look very safe. It’s above ground. Her garden has a variety of cacti and dusty flowers. Her husband is not such a peacenik as she is she says, but he comes to say hi.

It’s very hot as we have to turn off AC for interviews. We drink water and leave Julia’s heading towards the Sde Teiman prison where we manage to surreptitiously film from the window with the zoom lens. The UN estimates there are at least 10,000 Palestinians imprisoned at the moment - a third without charge or trial. Substantiated reports of widespread abuse, torture, sexual assault and rape in atrocious conditions.

We arrive at Avi Dabbush’s house (he is the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights) and he has a beautiful white, very hairy retriever dog who also comes to greet us. Again- he is very warm and friendly and he explains his experience with his family on Oct 7. They were waiting in their safe room for 8 hours til someone came to help. They only survived as he managed to sneak out and pull down the blinds before the Hamas attackers arrived. Many of his community were murdered.

I should mention that everywhere there are ‘bring them home’ posters with the faces of the hostages and posters commemorating those that died in the attacks almost on year ago.

Avi is also peace loving and since he was raised near the Gaza border in a kibbutz - he does not think this war is a good thing. He said he has always considered Gazans as his neighbours and part of his ‘neighbourhood’.

We leave Avi and head to Jerusalem via the separation wall, Hebron to our West and a beautiful sunset.

We see a small group of people standing in the gloaming as we enter Jerusalem with signs and we interview one man who is another humanitarian - he thinks Netanyahu is a war criminal and the war a disaster. He is visibly upset.

We arrive at St Georges where Gillian thought we were staying - in fact, where our youngest cub was christened.

Actually we are booked at St Thomas’ round the corner near the Jerusalem Hotel.

Day 3: Monday 30th September

We spend the day doing vox pops in Jerusalem. We drive up to a settlement where we find a man who talks about how the Palestinians deserve it and the only thing to do is fight. It is the homeland for Jews. And another young woman who cheers when she talks about the bombing - ‘yeah Israel!’ and waves her arms in the air.

We drive to Qalandiya checkpoint and it has metastasised since I was last here - walls and towers and barbed wire and heaps of rubbish. It was discombobulating negotiating our way around there. Gill shoots some Super 8 film. I film her walking past the wall.

Then we head to Sheikh Jarrah, a strange feeling to be visiting the area that was home for 4 years for us and the cubs, and the tomb of Shimon Tzedek where we find lots of ultra orthodox women who are warm with us but hate filled towards the Palestinians - ‘they can just leave and live in the desert’.

‘Why don’t they just go to Alaska’, one lady shrieked from her mobility scooter sitting beside another lady who was totally silent for the whole interview.

Then we head to West Jerusalem and have lunch in a sushi restaurant- doing some vox pops in German Colony. It is poles apart there - more tangible fear and hatred in interviews on this side of town.

We arrive at Esti Galili’s beautiful house in German Colony. She has a grey curly haired dog called Busby. She is a fascinating interviewee on fear and trauma and what it does individually and collectively. These interviews are gold.

Return to St Thomas’ after full day of filming. Head to American Colony for a drink. I see Fadi the waiter from Gaza who is working there. We remember each other from when we lived here. I ask about his family in Gaza. He says: ‘please can we just leave it there.’ He carries on with our order. My stomach pangs again.

There is no one really about. We head back to St Thomas’ to sleep.

Day 4: Tuesday 1st October

Drive to hill opposite old city (near Cinemateque) and film Yisrael Medad, American/Israeli settler activist and former member of Betar - right wing Zionist youth movement. Gillian takes him on over Gaza and Palestinians killed and he says he doesn’t believe the numbers (most of our interviewees don’t believe the numbers). It’s a long one and it’s very hot, and I am having to shoot all the interviews hand held as the tripod Gillian brought broke. Very interesting all the same and I go through the footage which looks steady.

We go from there to the Mount of Olives for general shots, and then park up and go into the Old City. We find a ginger haired man filming himself on a roof - conversation starts gently until he starts hurling insults at Gillian saying she’s a liar when she takes him on about ‘Judea and Samaria and all the land belongs to them.’

A slightly shaky lunch with delicious falafel. Old City is totally dead. Everything is shut pretty much - other than Arab shopping area and Jewish area. We visit a shop where Gillian buys an antique lamp and tries on some Palestinian thobes (ladies dress). The man in the Palestinian shop says either he will either have to close or he will have to move to the Jewish area.

Filming in the Old City - beside the piles of za’atar shaped into a Haram al Sharif. I got an encouraging pat on the back from a Palestinian lady coming out of the Coptic church.

We do another couple of vox pops with two ladies who are learning how to be tour guides and live near Tulkaram. Their daughters are scared all the time as they live ‘near an Arab area’ with their young kids. They say they don’t see what Palestinians have to be afraid of.

We walk out of new gate and up Jaffa street for more vox pops - we interview one well-spoken man and one red headed young woman. They are both fervently pro-war for their protection.

Gillian is a bit shaken and we go back to the hotel for a rest. Jamie calls and he tells me we should leave as soon as we can. I’ve never had a call from him like this when on a trip and his voice sounded funny. He said he couldn’t give me more detail. He is on the Iran desk and was calling from work.

I don’t want to wake Gillian so I buy a ticket anyway and tell her when she wakes up. She is upset that I didn’t tell her and talk it through first. We have two interviews in Tel Aviv and Gideon Levy can’t move his to Weds. but Dani Bar Tel can. We head to the Garden of Gethsemane to do some general views but it’s getting dark so we plan to go to the Knesset to get some shots of demonstrations.

Adam, Gillian’s friend and fixer who lives in Northern Israel calls and I can hear him explain that Iran are planning to launch hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel in the next 24 hours and everyone is preparing to get in their shelters. My head feels a bit fizzy and weird. All flights are cancelled and we head to the American Colony Hotel with some of our stuff.

Journalists everywhere. We have a salad and a drink. The sirens go and a screeching alarm sounds on all of our phones. We sit out the first one and then we go to the shelter with a few others. The waiters bring in water for us. The atmosphere is congenial but we watch what looks like a fireworks display on Ayman, the Palestinian journo’s phone. His wife is about to give birth in another part of Jerusalem. He says he has never seen anything like it. The iron dome stops most but a lot hit the ground. There are celebrations in many Arab areas and apparently some restaurants are handing out free kebabs.

There is a shooting in Tel Aviv and 8 people are killed. We stay for about 2 hours in the shelter and make some new friends including John the security guy who talks about every near scrape he’s had in life to date, and Thomas Harding a journalist for The National. After the attacks stop he invites us for a whisky in his room.

We go back to St Thomas’ and agree to do Dani’s interview the next morning and then head to Jordan or Egypt border crossing. But it’s Rosh Hasahana the next day and Budget car hire is not answering the phone.

Day 5: Wednesday 2nd October

We take the route 1 (angry, angry driving on the roads) and finally manage to reach Budget who say we can leave the car in either Eilat or Be’er Sheba.

I tell Gillian I am feeling uncomfortable and don’t want to be in Tel Aviv for any longer than we need. We get to Dani and he is so warm and charming.

‘Oh how creative!’ He says when we explain our escape route - we’ve decided to go overland via Egypt as all the flights are cancelled throughout Israel and Jordan.

Dani’s interview is spell-binding - and full of love and wisdom and understanding and knowledge. He has a huge picture on his wall of his young daughter on the lap of a Bedouin lady at a demonstration in the 90s. His daughter says she doesn’t want to school her children in Israel as the schools are brainwashing kids against Arabs.

We head out and drive and drive and drive. At this point we’re not totally sure the borders will even be open. As we approach Beer Sheba to leave the hire car, we flag down a taxi to take us to the border with Jordan/Egypt after we have dropped the car.

A taxi driver called Maor comes to our rescue in a big way - including taking on a fight with the Budget people, two of whom are poisonous. Then Maor takes us on a beautiful drive down the Negev desert. He asks us why we’re going to Egypt - ‘Israel is safe!’

We swap cars half way down- it’s difficult to get money out from cash machines. For all the high-tech of war machinery the country feels like it’s held together with sticky tape and if you don’t speak Hebrew a lot of daily simple tasks are impossible - including withdrawing cash and paying parking.

The drive is stunning. A road trip to remember. The Egypt border is open - we glide through the Israeli side - they don’t even check our bags or any of my footage. Gillian’s Star of David necklace is doing the trick. We cross into Egypt and feel instantly so much better. However….we had not thought through the process of bringing camera equipment into media-hating Egypt where Al Jazeera is banned.

There are copious calls to their superiors in Cairo. ‘Are you a journalist?’ They ask me. ‘No’.

‘Then what are you?’

‘I’m a Mum.’

‘She’s not a journalist, she’s a Mum.’ They say over the phone to their superiors. They look at me and the massive pile of camera kit, trying to work it out.

2.5 hours later we start getting annoyed and they explain we need to leave the kit, pay £60 and it will be in Cairo airport in 2 days. Gillian kindly stay an extra day to wait for the kit. I book my flight from Sharm al Shekkh to LGW on EasyJet for the following night. Being able to get home for our eldest cub’s 15th birthday is the only thing I have in my mind and to be with the cubs and the Lion for the weekend.

We have to get to and fro for money from the cash point through a very narrow gap in a wall - there’s a hotel for cash the other side. It is such a squish that we have to manually move our boobs through the gap. We have a hysterical moment with the Egyptian customs guys who are watching - it feels very incongruous.

The Steigenberger hotel in Taba is the place to be at Roshashanah - Israeli Arabs are there for a weekend to unwind from all the chaos. There is pumping music, alcohol and enormous buffets. The sea is turquoise blue and you can see the red-hued bulk of Saudi and Jordan opposite.

We laugh a lot in delight at being here. It is very comfortable and relaxing. We have a great sleep, a bit of snorkelling the following morning and then we hit the road in a minibus and then he moves us into a taxi with red seats, red pompom and jolly driver who jokes about Ferraris.

The drive is spectacular- we go past the turning to St Catherine’s Monastery. Next time I would love to stop there and see it. The Sinai is deserted - with many resorts half built including one semi constructed church next to mosque. We arrive in Sharm at dusk. It’s an enormous gated monstrous place, but it was my springboard home in time for our eldest cub’s birthday so I don’t mind.