Barred entry to Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, Western photojournalists and TV crews found themselves confined to the Israeli side of the border during the assault, peering along the barrels of IDF artillery. The following essay reflects on what was said and heard among them on a sunny day in January 2009, how they and local Israeli spectators related to the violence, and how these two perspectives were tacitly elided in photographs of the war.

Peter Lagerquist is a journalist based in Jerusalem. He would like to thank Emilio Dabed, Nithya Nagarajan, Taiseer Khatib, Zinaida Miller, Tom Hill, Robert Blecher, and Deema Arafah for their help with this essay, which first appeared in French translation in Le Monde Diplomatique online, February 2009.