Stirs up painful memories

earlier by members of Hamas.

The deaths of the four youths spiralled into a seven-week war between Israel and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

HBO’s 10-episode dramatisation dissects Israel’s internal investigation into the three ultra-Orthodox Jews eventually convicted of Abu Khdeir’s murder and the frantic initial days after his parents learnt of his disappearance and death.

The Hebrew- and Arabiclanguage series was written, directed and produced by two Jewish Israelis and a Palestinian from 1948 areas, who mix documentary footage with live production to delve into the micro details they say drive the conflict.

“We live in an extremely nuanced world where wars erupt because of tiny things,” co-director Joseph Cedar, 50, said in an interview alongside collaborators Hagai Levi and Tawfik Abu Wael.

“We tried to peel back the layers of this hate crime,” he said. But some bereaved Israeli families have said the show largely glosses over the murder of the three Israeli teens, who are referenced throughout the series but not included as characters.

Two Hamas suspects in the murders were killed in a 2014 shoot-out and in 2015 an Israeli court sentenced a third Hamas member to three life terms for the teens’ abduction and murder.

“The balance is not clear to someone viewing the show, who thinks ‘we murder them, they murder us’,” said Merav Hajaj, whose daughter, an army officer, was killed along with three other cadets in a Palestinian truck ramming attack in Jerusalem in 2017.

Hajaj, 49, wrote a letter signed by some 120 bereaved Israeli families criticising HBO and requesting the programme list the number of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks through the years.