The documentary "The Heart of Jenin"  

For the first time, a documentary about a Palestinian boy whose tragic death saved the lives of five Israeli children – thanks to his father – has been screened in the West Bank.The documentary -- "The Heart of Jenin" – tells the story of 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Ahmad al-Khatib, who was shot dead by Israeli troops when they mistook his toy gun for a real weapon.The shooting happened in the West Bank town of Jenin on Nov. 2, 2005. At the time, Israeli soldiers had orders to "shoot anything that moved," one soldier said in the documentary.

The shot to Ahmad's head proved fatal, killing the boy from Jenin refugee camp. Ahmad's father Ismael al-Khatib later decided to donate his boy's organs to patients at the Haifa hospital where his son was pronounced dead."If I can't help my son to recover, then may be I can help other kids," he says in the documentary. Five Israeli children received Ahmad's life-saving organs. The feature length documentary – directed by Marcus Vetter and Lior Geller –was screened at the German-French Cultural Center in Ramallah on March 27, the first time the film was shown in the Palestinian territories for a general audience.Palestinian cinemas refused the film because Geller is Israeli, said Farid Maajari, director of the cultural center.

Storyline
The Heart of Jenin follows Ahmad's father Ismael on his journey through Israel, visiting the children who found life through his son's death.Ahmad's kidneys went to the daughter of a Jewish settler in Occupied Jerusalem and a Bedouin boy from the Negev Desert region. His heart went to a Druze family in northern Israel. Two other beneficiaries chose not to participate in the documentary. The extraordinary donation was approved not only by the boy's grief-stricken mother and father, but religious and political scholars too. In the movie, Jenin's mufti approves organ donations. The opinion is backed by the Jenin commander of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. "We have no problem with Jews as Jews. There's no problem as long as this will save lives," says Zakaria Zubeidi.In the movie, the father of the Jewish girl said he did not want to meet the donor family and would have preferred if they were Jewish. He said Arabs only want to kill Israelis, apparently oblivious to the actions of Ahmad's father who donated his son's kidney to save the settler girl.After the screening in Ramallah, German director Vetter told the audience the film was banned from the Tel Aviv film festival allegedly for technical reasons. "Some people said the film is biased towards the Palestinians because it tackles the death of the child and focuses on checkpoints, collective punishment, and the destruction of Jenin refugee camp," Vetter said.Ismail al-Khatib now runs a music school for children in Jenin. "Without peace, only killing will remain. Children from Palestine and Israel and all the world will die," Khatib said.(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid).