Tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets today to commemorate the “nakba,” or “catastrophe,” when they fled or were expelled from their homes during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and a shell was fired into Israel from Gaza, though it landed in an open field.

Today, almost half of the world’s Palestinian population are refugees, according to a recent report. While most Palestinians cling to the right of return to their ancestral lands as a fundamental tenant of any peace deal, a resolution remains elusive.

For more background on this issue, the editors of The I Files have put together a playlist highlighting some of the best reporting about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

YouTube video

“Home Front” details the coming of age of a Palestinian boy who was evicted from his East Jerusalem home by Israeli settlers. He now lives next door to the settlers who have occupied his family’s house.

This excerpt from the Oscar-nominated documentary “The Gatekeepers”  delves into the inner workings of the Shin Bet, Israel’s famously opaque security service. Former Shin Bet directors talk publicly for the first time about controversial decisions they made in the name of their country’s security.

“Resistance in the West Bank,” by Vice TV, chronicles how young Palestinians are starting to turn against the Palestinian Authority, frustrated with the lack of progress in land negotiations with Israel. One former member of the Islamic Jihad who is interviewed in the film says this frustration inevitably will lead any young activist who is engaged in nonviolent protest to turn to more aggressive and deadly forms of action.

“That person will follow the nonviolent struggle for one or two years and then will realize that nonviolent struggle will not achieve the victory he’s looking for,” he explains, “and he will naturally revert to armed resistance on his own without any external pressure.”

“What was taken by force will be reclaimed by force,” he says.

To keep up with the latest documentaries, subscribe to The I Files, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting.

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Amanda Pike (she/her) is the director of the TV and documentary department and executive producer of films and series at Reveal. Under her leadership, The Center for Investigative Reporting garnered its first Academy Award nomination and four national Emmys, among other accolades. She was the executive producer of the inaugural year of the Glassbreaker Films initiative, supporting women in documentary filmmaking and investigative journalism. She has spent the past two decades reporting and producing documentaries for PBS, CBS, ABC, National Geographic, A&E, Lifetime and The Learning Channel, among others. Subjects have ranged from militia members in Utah to young entrepreneurs in Egypt and genocide perpetrators in Cambodia. Pike also has dabbled in fiction filmmaking, producing the short film “On the Assassination of the President,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She is a graduate of Princeton University and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.