New Story on Time.com
Don't read this if you're squeamish.
I have become largely desensitized to gore for many reasons. First, I have seen my share of Hollywood films. Second, I worked as a medic during the second Intifadah. Third, I have seen the devastation of war and natural disaster firsthand . Fourth, I once saw Al Gore in person. (ok, terrible joke, sorry). I thought I was a pretty composed dude until I flipped through the photo album of Gazan Doctor Tada Medhat Taha. There I saw images so grisly I wish I could erase them from my memory, but I know I never will. Every once in a while, when I least expect it, they will flash in my mind's eye, sending chills up my spine.
He showed me what human brains look like when they're oozing out of the skull. I nearly vomited. He showed me a human eye socket with an eyeball dangling by a thread. I did vomit a little bit into my mouth. He showed me a blue, lifeless human leg that had just been amputated. I got up and left the room in the middle of the interview. I walked down a corridor full of fake limbs and teenagers banished to wheelchairs for life, went into the bathroom, and didn't know if I should cry or vomit or both. I ended up splashing cold water on my face, and told him not to show me those images ever again.
This is one of the hardest stories I ever had to do for many reasons. Access was difficult. Building trust was especially difficult. It took many trips without the camera just to make friends with guys that are mostly my age or younger. Had I been born about 50 kilometers south of where I'm typing now, I could have easily been one of them.
I ended up interviewing between 10 and 12 Fatah policemen, activists, and bodyguards about their lives in Gaza before, during, and after the Hamas takeover. I never had the heart to turn off the camera and just let them talk for hours on end. In the more than 2 years I've been going back and forth to Ramallah to meet up with these men, deprived of their limbs and their families, I've learned more about life, love, and war than in my 28 years prior. I understand now that legs a man can do without. But to be cut off from your family, and your roots, is too painful for most men to bare.
I've also been privileged to amass many hours of interviews, from which I've amalgamated a fascinating oral history of the Hamas takeover. I reckon this probably could have been a pretty good feature film, too. Here's a glimpse: