A LEADING Scottish screenwriter has paid tribute to a Palestinian journalist killed in an Israeli air strike.
Paul Laverty, who is known for his collaboration with Ken Loach on I, Daniel Blake, and Sweet Sixteen starring a young Martin Compston, has voiced his outrage at the UK Government’s “collusion with genocide” in Gaza.
Ahead of an event in Cannes to remember Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, who was killed on April 16 in northern Gaza, Laverty shared a video message aimed at UK ministers.
Hassouna, 25, and ten members of her family, including her pregnant sister, were killed just days before her wedding.
“If I die, I want a loud death,” she wrote on social media before she was killed.
Hassouna was the subject of a documentary made by Iranian director Sepideh Farsi (below), Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk. The film tells the story of the daily life of Palestinians through filmed video conversations between Hassouna and Farsi, and was screened at Cannes on May 15.
Palme d’Or winners Laverty and Loach also penned an open letter remembering Hassouna as a “courageous young woman” and urging the international community to speak out about Gaza.
In a video clip seen by The National, and due to be screened at a press conference in Cannes denouncing Hassouna’s murder, Laverty sent his “solidarity from Scotland”.
“It is international law, the law of the land. So lets put our politicians on notice that in terms of Article 3 they are in collusion with genocide by directly and indirectly, by the fair view, are supporting genocide in Gaza.
“Let’s put them on a wanted list, let’s remember their names, all all around the world.”
Laverty then called out the UK Cabinet, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Defence Secretary John Healey.
“We will remember you,” he said.
“Let’s put them on a shame and name list, and say we are coming after you in terms of the genocide convention Article 3.”
Laverty added: “We shall remember your name, we shall put you on a list, and we are after you. Carry out your duties in the term of the law, do you duty, stop genocide now.
“Fatima, we remember you darling.”
The Foreign Office declined to comment, but directed The National to comments made by Lammy in the Commons on Tuesday.
“My concern that the denial of essential humanitarian assistance to a civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching international humanitarian law, that I suspended arms back in September. I want us to get back to a ceasefire; I want us to get back to diplomacy," Lammy told MPs.
Laverty and Loach called for the international film community to advocate for peace in Cannes while the festival is underway.
“For a few short days, the world’s attention rests on Cannes as film-makers from many countries try their best to make sense of what is happening around them. Cannes has a tradition of engagement in the affairs of the day, and some still have vivid memories of the events of 1968,” they say in the letter.
“Young Fatima clearly foresaw her own murder, and said, ‘I want a loud death.’ On 15th May, the day of the screening, can we honour this courageous young woman, and her fellow Palestinian journalists (no foreign journalist has been allowed into Gaza) who gave their lives to bear witness to mass murder.”
“If we do not stop Genocide now, the Israeli/Trump version of the Riviera in Gaza will be built on the rubble and the dead,” they added.
“The ethnic cleansing will continue through the West Bank and the Palestinian people will have been finally driven from their historic homeland.
“If the war criminals escape justice what horrors will come next?
“Fatima Hassouna, and her family, murdered on the 16th April, ’25, Rest in Peace.”
