Arna’s Children is a 2004 documentary by Juliano Mer-Khamis about the work of Arna Mer-Khamis, a Jewish Israeli woman who rejected her Zionist upbringing and built a children’s theatre and alternative education program in the Jenin refugee camp during the First Intifada. When schools were closed, she created a space where children could express fear, anger and hope through performance. The early footage, filmed between 1989 and 1996, shows kids in the camp acting, laughing and imagining futures beyond military raids, demolitions and checkpoints.
After Arna’s death, Juliano returned to Jenin in 2002 following a major Israeli military invasion that destroyed large parts of the camp, including the theatre. The children he once filmed had become young men shaped by years of siege, displacement and violence. Several joined armed resistance. Ashraf and Ala became leaders in the Battle of Jenin. Yussef and Nidal carried out an attack in Hadera in 2001. Others were killed in confrontations with Israeli forces.
The film presents these developments directly and without commentary. It shows how the boys who once used theatre to process their trauma later faced a reality where many felt there were no peaceful paths left. The structure of the documentary has sparked discussion in solidarity circles. Some viewers feel the shift from childhood scenes to funerals and posters of the dead creates a mournful tone. Others say it risks overshadowing the everyday forms of steadfastness that Palestinians practice beyond armed struggle. Many also view the film as essential testimony that documents how occupation shaped the lives of these children and the choices they made as adults.
Arna’s Children is considered an important work in Palestinian documentary cinema. It records a community, a theatre and a generation living under military pressure. It follows the paths those children took as the conditions around them hardened. The film stands as a record of Jenin’s history and of Arna’s attempt to create dignity and expression in a place defined by restriction and loss.
