More Than 1000 Words Page #4

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wife and children.

We have a relationship

that is really like family.

All the events that happened

to me through the years

I didn't want my kids

to know about them.

When the kids are awake,

we don't talk about it at all.

But my son asks me:

"Why are you wounded?"

"What's that from?"

So I tell him I fell.

But people tell him about it,

strangers outside the house.

And then the boy, surprised,

comes and asks me.

I remember in the last incident,

he didn't know anything about it.

He went out shopping

with his mother a day later,

and he saw my picture

in the newspaper

where soldiers

are choking me,

and he got scared,

and told his mother,

"Look mommy, that's dad!"

So you can't hide it.

Once, I remember, he told me,

"Listen, you are not a man."

I asked him, "Why do you

think that I am not a man?"

He said, "They beat you,

and you can't respond?"

Good evening.

After four months of calm,

terror returned

to Tel Aviv yesterday.

Our correspondent

meets a photographer;

though he's a veteran,

at moments like this

his hands still shake.

In a terror attack the first

5 to 10 minutes are critical.

After that, the scene is

sterile, sealed off and closed.

Even before I get to the scene,

I photograph everything

I see on the way.

So in seconds

you're all business again?

My mission is purely

to record things as they are.

I serve the public.

The world has a right to know.

That's what goes through

my mind when I'm working.

It's important to show.

It's inconceivable that dozens

of people are blown to pieces,

and we publish a sterile picture

so as not to ruin

people's breakfasts.

People went out to dance, and

were blasted to a thousand hells.

We can't carry on as if

it was business as usual.

23:
15 on the Tel Aviv Boardwalk,

a suicide bomber approaches

a crowd waiting

to enter the "Stage" club,

and blows himself up.

In the current Intifada, five

or six attacks occurred within

a kilometer of my house. The

first thing that comes to mind is,

where are my

wife and daughter?

And then I think of how

to get there and shoot...

And when I get to the scene,

there's this little thought,

please don't let me

see someone I know!

A familiar face

zipped up in a bag.

At least two or three times I heard

the explosions from my office,

which is in walking distance

from where Galit shops.

There was the suicide attack in

"My Coffee Shop"

where Kineret was wounded.

At first there were

reports that it was just

down the street

from our apartment.

Under our apartment

is the photo lab.

I said, "Wait a second!

Ziv is there."

It was Saturday night. I was in

the photo lab. I heard a blast.

I realized at once

it was an attack nearby.

Just some 300 or 400

meters away.

I rushed there.

The place was still on fire.

I arrived before

the ambulances did.

Civilians evacuated the

wounded from the coffee shop.

When he arrived, the

place was still burning.

As far as I know, as long

as the place was on fire,

I was still inside.

A police officer arrived.

Instead of throwing me out,

he told me, "Stand behind

the tree because the place

could explode

any second now."

After they put out the fire,

I ran toward the coffee shop,

and I took the picture

of Kineret's evacuation.

I don't remember what

happened. Nothing. It's erased.

All I know is from stories.

And Ziv's pictures helped me to

complete what was missing.

And though I don't

want to remember it,

it was very important

for me to know

what happened and to

see it with my own eyes.

This is the picture I took of you a

few months later for the doctors.

Yes, to Dr. Feldman.

Where is this doctor?

Dr. Feldman is in Boston.

Amazing, huh?

Yeah, quite a job

he did on my face.

Amazing.

Sure it's difficult.

There is a price for everything.

First of all, a human price

of working with

and seeing such material.

The human material

you work with takes its toll.

On the personal

and professional level,

you have to make many

concessions to do this job.

I received many phone calls

on the day of this attack.

My friends and family

know that I go there.

Somehow you get

used to it, and you hope

that when you open

the newspaper,

it's not someone

you know. That's all.

Human nature

is very adaptive.

We get used to situations.

The situation gets

worse and we get used to it.

You know...

If you take a pot of boiling

water and throw a frog in,

the frog jumps for all

it's worth to escape death.

But if you put a frog

in lukewarm water

and slowly raise

the temperature,

the frog will

slowly cook to death.

And that's exactly

what's happening

to our society nowadays.

Because the process is long

and the escalation is gradual,

I ask myself, how many steps

are there in

this escalation?

It's a kind of

'Stairway to Heaven.'

He documents reality.

A twisted reality.

But he documents it,

he doesn't create it.

That people lack the strength

and can't stomach it anymore?

It's obvious.

How much can people take?

I don't know what he's made of.

I don't know why a person

would want to touch

that part of life.

I myself can't deal with it.

Especially now

that I'm a mother.

I know that there are areas

of Tel Aviv that he avoids passing.

One day he couldn't

help it. He said,

"When I look at this crosswalk,

I see body parts, not people."

The first suicide bombing

I photographed

was the attack on the number

5 bus in October 1994,

and even today I try

to avoid the place.

The bombing

took place at 8:
53,

and I was at

the scene by 8:
59.

Without doubt,

it was the most traumatic

event I've

ever experienced.

The element of the unknown

was hardest of all

because you don't know

what you're about to see.

Two ambulances stood

near the bus that exploded.

I stopped the motorcycle.

I ran towards the bus.

I looked right and saw the bus

gaping with all the bodies inside.

A policeman comes by

with a woman in his arms.

You can see it's

shot from below because

I didn't get to lift

my camera to eye level.

From chest level, I snapped

two shots and kept running.

I found myself

between two buses.

It was...

the closest thing

to hell I can describe.

The bodies were still in flames.

Smoke rose from the bodies.

I was choking.

After that, I saw nothing.

I switched to autopilot. I knew

that in the next few minutes

I had to take as many photos

as possible, before it ended.

My friend Paz, next

to me shot on video.

He held the

camera and zoomed in,

and when he got to

the bus's guts, he fainted.

I really wanted

to get out of there.

I begged the paper to let

me go back to the office.

When I finally got

back to the office,

I sat there like a zombie.

I couldn't do anything.

I didn't know

half of what I shot

because they were

shot from the hip.

Every person who was present

got psychological therapy.

The police, the rescue team went

through all these sessions.

The only people they ignored

were the photographers.

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