Breaking the Silence

Trócaire

Breaking The Silence, an organisation of former Israel Defence Force (IDF) combatants, presents an exhibition of photographs taken by soldiers serving in the West Bank and Gaza. The photographs and the accompanying testimony offer an insight into the tactics used by the IDF to control and disrupt the daily lives of Palestinian civilians, and reveal the psychological and physical damage those tactics have on both the Palestinian people and the soldiers themselves.

The exhibition, supported by Trócaire, marks the tenth anniversary of Breaking The Silence’s first ever photographic exhibition, which was held in Tel Aviv in June 2004. It has since toured Europe, North America and Israel and now, for the first time, will be on here in Gallery of Photography from Thursday June 19th to Sunday June 29th. Members of Breaking The Silence, all of whom served in the IDF, will be here during the exhibition run to offer personal tours and recall their experiences.

Describing the exhibition, Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of Breaking The Silence and one of the former soldiers who will be in Dublin for the exhibition, says: “We saw and did a great deal during our time in the occupied territories, but for the duration of our service we said very little about our experience to our friends, to our families, and even to each other. But after we completed our army service, we chose to break the silence.”

Breaking the Silence exhibition

“This exhibition shows the reality of what we witnessed – innocent civilians being beaten, children kept from school, parents kept from work, people’s homes invaded, and much more. The photographs and testimony refute the false claim that the horrors of the occupation are the exception rather than the norm.”

— Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of Breaking The Silence

Breaking the Silence (BTS) was founded in June 2004 by recently discharged Israeli ex-combatants. Noting the vast gap between the reality they witnessed during their service in Hebron and the knowledge of this reality in mainstream Israeli society, a group of 65 soldiers assumed the duty to inform the Israeli public and decision-makers about that which is being done in their name in the OPT. Through a photo exhibition in Tel Aviv, we broke our silence about our experiences in Hebron, revealing the daily human rights abuses that have become the norm after more than four decades of Occupation.

Since then, we have grown to be a significant voice both within Israel and in the international community. We collect and publish testimonies from soldiers who, like us, served in the OPT – the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem – since the start of the Second Intifada in the year 2000. To date, we have conducted interviews with more than 700 conscripts and reservists who represent all strata of Israeli society and cover nearly all units that operate in the OPT. We also organize hundreds of guided tours to the West Bank each year, enabling thousands of Israeli and international participants to directly encounter life in the OPT.

The Breaking The Silence exhibition was held with the support of Trócaire.