Interview with Ziv Koren
(VIdeo: Yaron Sharon, Lior Sharon)
Veteran photojournalist Ziv Koren says he can barely remember life before October 7, 2023, the day Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israel. Like many Israelis, Koren awoke to a new reality that day, but as a professional, he quickly headed south under fire to document the events as they unfolded. Since then, he has been working tirelessly.
"I've been working 19 hours a day, seven days a week, for a year straight, to try to produce that significant body of work, which for me is a historical document that should remain here for future generations," he told Ynet during a special broadcast marking the one-year anniversary of the massacre.
Koren believes the world is split into two groups: "Half who don’t remember October 7, and the other half who don’t believe it really happened. In the end, the photograph is such a significant document. It’s proof that things really happened, and that’s why I try to echo October 7 around the world,” he said, noting his collaboration with Israel’s Foreign Ministry to ensure global awareness.
The truth is hidden behind the cliché: one picture is worth a thousand words, no matter how many interviews and speeches will be everywhere, in the global media. This picture, this photograph, has much more meaning.
"True. And that's why, again, I'm trying to create an echo for this footage, so there is also an exhibition that has been on display for several months at the Peres Center, and at the same time, the Foreign Ministry has an exhibition that has already been shown in many countries around the world. There is work with magazines abroad that publish the story, to keep the issue of October 7 relevant, and not forget in any way the issue of the hostages. These are the goals."
You got in touch with some of the hostages who returned, in the sense that you also accompany them. We saw it with Mia there, for example. really. How did such a relationship come about?
"First of all, it's on a daily level. I mean, especially since the project we did for Yedioth and Ynet, that we bring back significant figures whose lives changed on the seventh of October to the place where it happened. I must say that it has almost become my daily life - the fact that I am in touch with hostages who have returned, with wounded people who are still in rehabilitation, with families I accompany."
It also affects the image, the photography.
"Yes, but it's a double-edged sword, because you stab and are stabbed with the same degree of intensity, and these are really people who entered my heart and became, I can say, even my friends. I think that every citizen in the State of Israel should get up every morning and think about what he can do To end this unimaginable saga, there are Israelis who were kidnapped from their beds and are under the ground in Gaza. We cannot afford to normalize this event. It is impossible, and there are great minds in the world Here in this country, which has to find some kind of solution, it is impossible to normalize this event."
What moment are you waiting to take a picture?
"The return of the hostages. There will not be a happier moment than this in the history of the State of Israel."
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