Origin: France | Documentary | Director: Sophie Nivelle-Cardinale, Alice Odiot | 52 minutes

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Made in France - Au service de la guerre (aka: Made in France: Gaza im Visier)
[War Crimes in Gaza - When French Weapons Kill]

On July 17, 2014, during Operation Protective Edge, an Israeli drone targeted a house in a working-class neighborhood of Gaza. Wassim, Afnan and Jihad, three children who played on the roof, die, their bodies riddled with the shrapnel of a missile. A Palestinian investigator, Yamin al-Madhoun, tasked by the NGO Al Mezan to collect evidence of war crimes committed during the offensive, discovers a small piece of metal among the debris. It is listed as "Paris, France" and the name of a French company. For the first time, a legal link could be established between a war crime and a French industrialist. This exhibit allows the start of a procedure between the parents of missing children and a manufacturer of war equipment. Unprecedented in the history of French jurisprudence: a judge will have to rule on the complicity of a private company in the participation of a war crime committed by a foreign army. The complaint has been heard since February 2018 by the "Crimes against Humanity - Crimes and Crimes of War" division of the Paris Judicial Court. The case, which was under investigation in 2020, had so far remained confidential.

"David vs. Goliath"
Journalists and documentary filmmakers Sophie Nivelle-Cardinale (Albert-London Prize in 2016, for the documentary Disappeared, the Invisible War of Syria)and AliceOdiot (winner of the same prize in 2012 for Zambia, who benefits from copper? ) recount the case, from the rooftops of Gaza to the Parisian law firm, which considers the upcoming fight to be like that of "Davidagainst Goliath". We follow the slow path of justice, through the headquarters of the United Nations or through Tel Aviv, where the filmmakers were able to capture the words of senior leaders of the Israeli army. In addition to the chilling images shot by the investigator in the aftermath of the bombing, the documentary also focuses at length on the survivors of the Shuheibar family, their faces ringing in front of investigators and lawyers, or their anxious eyes turned to the sky. In ten years, the NGO Al Mezan has filed 244 complaints in Israel concerning more than 500 civilians killed or wounded by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. None were successful. For them, the trial in France represents the only legal response to the war crimes committed by Israel.

Full feature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5oMxei1u0c

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