TEL AVIV, Israel — HBO’s new docudrama series about the killings of four Israeli and Palestinian teenagers, violence which set off a cascade of events leading to the 2014 Gaza war, is set to air this week and is likely to reopen wounds on both sides of the conflict.
“Our Boys,” co-created by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, presents a dramatized rendition of the chaotic events of that June following the abduction of three Israeli teens in the West Bank. The series, coproduced by HBO and Israel’s Keshet TV, and premiering Tuesday, looks at the hatred and violence unleashed during one of the decades-old conflict’s most frenzied periods.
In June 2014, Gilad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel, and Eyal Yifrah, three Israeli teenagers aged 16 and 19, were abducted and killed by Palestinian militants outside a West Bank settlement. An extensive Israeli military search eventually located their remains over two weeks later. After the discovery, three Israelis kidnapped Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian from east Jerusalem, and burned him alive in the woods outside the city.
Israel launched a sweeping crackdown in the West Bank after the three teenagers went missing, and the Islamic militant group Hamas began firing rockets from Gaza in response to the arrests of hundreds of its members. In response, Israel launched a full-scale air and ground invasion of the territory. The 51-day war killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, over half of them civilians, according to U.N. tallies. At least 73 people were killed on the Israeli side, 67 of them soldiers.