Mohammad Bakri, actor and director of controversial ‘Jenin, Jenin,’ dies at 72 |
Actor and filmmaker Mohammed Bakri, an actor and director of the controversial film “Jenin, Jenin,” died on Wednesday at age 72.
“Mohammed Bakri died this Wednesday at the Galilee Medical Center” in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, hospital spokesperson Gal Zaid told AFP.
He died from heart and lung problems, according to his family. He is survived by six children — five sons and a daughter.
Born in Bi’ina, northern Israel, in 1953, into a Muslim family, Bakri started his acting career at Habima, the Haifa Theater and the Kan Theater after graduating from Tel Aviv University.
He appeared in leading Israeli films but was also directed by the French-Greek director Costa-Gavras and Italian filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani.
His role as a Palestinian inmate in an Israeli prison in the 1980s film “Beyond the Walls” earned him critical acclaim in Israel and around the world.
His international renown grew with the release of 2002’s “Jenin, Jenin,” which has been widely discredited for falsely alleging that the Israel Defense Forces massacred civilians in the West Bank city of Jenin during the Operation Defensive Shield military........