Koren said he felt it was his responsibility to tell the story, “even though its something that most people just want to look away from.”
AUGUST 15, 2024 10:12
Israeli photojournalist Ziv Koren took a quarter of a million photos on October 7, and he has not stopped since, capturing 350,000 moments related to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, Koren told CNN on Wednesday.
Speaking from his new public art display in Jaffa, Koren spoke to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the morning of the war.
He drove from Tel Aviv to Sderot and then tried to drive towards the Gaza envelope, during which he was held up by Hamas gunfire for over twenty minutes. Armed with his camera, press helmet, and protective gear, Koren documented what he found in the kibbutzim, the Nova festival, and on the roads.Top ArticlesRead More
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“I didn’t really [take photos of] a lot of people who were alive,” Koren told CNN. “Most of what I photographed were dead Israelis.”
Koren said he felt it was his responsibility to tell the story, “even though it’s something that most people just want to look away from.”
He has taken 350,000 photos since that day: “I never stopped since,” he told CNN.
A selection of his images will be shown at an exhibit at the Shimon Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Jaffa, opening later this week. His aim is to provide first hand testimony from the kibbutzim, from the battlefields and from the struggle of the families of hostages, who Koren said are “all we should be thinking about.”
Part of the proceeds will be given to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
The website says that Koren’s exhibit is “memorializing and preserving the memory of the greatest disaster that has ever occurred in the State of Israel.”
Pointing to the photos taken from Nir Oz on 7 October, Koren said to CNN that “the worst thing about what happened in Nir Oz is that no one came to save them.”
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Since that day
Koren has stayed in touch with many people whose lives were permanently altered on October 7, or whom he met on that day, documenting everything.
“A couple that I covered for 8 months now, they were both in the Nova festival. They went to one of these shelters on the main road. Like the other shelters, the Hamas threw grenades in this shelter. They were both severely wounded.”
Of the people in the same shelter, twenty died. The couple both lost one leg.
“Since then, I’ve been covering their rehabilitation, and they got married last week,” Koren added.
About 400 of Koren’s photographs were combined into a 300-page book in May, alongside excerpts of text penned by Koren and other writers.
‘October 7: Ziv Koren’ will be showing at Shimon Peres Center for Peace and Innovation. Ticket price is 40 NIS. https://peres-center.org/en/the-organization/news/october-7/
