Photo of Israeli soldier injured by friendly fire during Lebanon War
Credit: Yoav Galai
During last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah, the international media was granted very little access to the Israeli front-lines. (Despite what you might conclude from some misguided conclusions by Marvin Kalb... but that's another story.)
One of those who was allowed to embed with Israeli forces was Yoav Galai, a young Israeli freelance photographer.
In the waning days of the war, Galai joined an Israeli engineering unit in Lebanon that was part of the costly last-ditch push north.
On Aug. 12, two days before the cease-fire took hold, the unit rolled into the desolate, decimated Lebanese village of Ainata.
As the soldiers scouted the village, the unit was hit by powerful explosions that seriously injured eight soldiers.
Galai snapped shots of the wounded soldiers as they faded in-and-out of consciousness, as they were treated by medics and as they were evacuated by helicopter.
The stark images were transmitted around the world and garnered several prestigious awards.
It wasn't until four months after the attack, at an awards ceremony, that one of the soldiers came up to Galai and told him that the attack had been friendly fire from Israeli troops, not Hezbollah.
In some ways, those soldiers were lucky: Across Lebanon, 24 other Israeli soldiers (including the 20-year-old son of prominent Israeli author David Grossman) were killed on Aug. 12, making it the single worst day for the Israeli military.
Galai has been showing his work this fall at UCLA and hopes to bring the exhibit back to Israel this summer to mark the second anniversary of the war.
In showing the exhibit, Galai refrains from using captions.
"The next time people see war, whether it’s Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan, I want them to know this is what war looks like," Galai told the UCLA Daily Bruin. "Everyone in green, the blood is red.”
As for the injured Israeli soldiers, Galai said they are "alive... and not so well."
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