A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians

October 15, 2024
7/6c: pbs.org/frontline, PBS App
10/9c: PBS stations (check local listings), YouTube
& the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel
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A year after the October 7 attacks and the start of the war in Gaza, a new FRONTLINE documentary tells the harrowing first-person stories of Israelis and Palestinians living through this unprecedented year of violence.

From award-winning director Robin Barnwell, A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians will premiere Tuesday, October 15, 2024, on PBS and streaming platforms. Offering visceral accounts of the October 7 attacks and the year of bloodshed that has followed, the 90-minute documentary follows people in Gaza and Israel as they grapple with death, despair and ongoing trauma.

In the film, Israelis describe what it was like to experience the deadliest day for Jews since World War II as the October 7 attacks unfolded, with around 1,200 people killed, 5,000 injured and 251 taken hostage. And in Gaza, where more than 40,000 people have reportedly been killed in Israel’s retaliation against Hamas, Palestinians describe – and record – the horrors of large-scale devastation.

In kibbutzim targeted by Hamas, two Israeli mothers, Gali and Bat-Sheva, describe what Gali calls the “absolute terror” of family members being shot – including Gali’s young daughter, who died – and partners being taken hostage. Agam, then 17, recalls gunman killing her father and sister, and then “dying from fear” as Hamas held her captive. And Shoham, a young man who was attending the Nova music festival targeted by Hamas, describes running for his life – and coming to terms with death: “I’ve finished the chapter and now the screen is about to turn off, like in the movies.”

In Gaza, Ibrahim, a former commercial photographer, turns his camera on the war even as his own family members, including a two-year-old girl, are killed, saying, “I’ve never seen anything like this, even in movies. Will we wake up the next day, will we have died?” Ghada, a young Palestinian woman, says she once dreamed of starting a solar energy company, but now, her dream is for her and her family “to make it out alive.” And Dr. Mohammad El-Ran, who worked at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital as it was repeatedly struck by Israeli fire during the campaign against Hamas, recalls learning on the job that 16 members of his family had been killed, and adjusting to a new and devastating reality: “People who are able to find their loved ones to bury them are the lucky ones.”

Through these individual stories, the film offers a devastating portrait of the conflict as a whole, and a profound look inside a cycle of violence and tragedy with no end in sight.

“I thought in another universe we might live together,” Agam says. “The opportunity is gone.”

“I could die at any moment and so could my family,” says Ghada. “There’s no future at all.”

A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting October 15, 2024, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel that night at 10/9c and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcast episodes and more related to A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians.

Credits
A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians is a Top Hat production for GBH/FRONTLINE. The director is Robin Barnwell. The producers are Robin Barnwell and Toby Fitzpatrick. The senior producer is Dan Edge. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

About FRONTLINE
FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won an Academy Award® as well as every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 108 Emmy Awards and 34 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and Koo and Patricia Yuen.

Press Contact: Anne Husted, Associate Director of Publicity, Communications and Awards | frontlinemedia@wgbh.org | 617.300.5312