Based on a series of short narratives by six authors of French, Israeli and Palestinian origin (Serge Gordey, Arik Bernstein, Osna Trabelsi, Youssef Atwa, Robby Elmaliah and Khalil al-Muzayen), the winning documentary depicts the day-to-day lives of Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis in Sderot, just three kilometres away, a few weeks before the Israeli military began its attacks on Gaza in December 2008.

The ICRC jury was struck by the film’s aesthetic qualities but also by the authors’ intensely compassionate treatment of the anonymous heroes of these stories: the fear of the inhabitants of Sderot and the courage of the people of Gaza, caught between hope and despair and forced to eke out a living in conditions of great hardship.

The ICRC press prize was created in 2003. It is awarded to a current-affairs programme that promotes the principles of international humanitarian law by covering an armed conflict in terms of the suffering it inflicts.