Cannes mourns Palestinian journalist killed in Gaza airstrike

By Hanna Rantala and Francesca Halliwell

CANNES, France (Reuters) - The Cannes film community mourned Palestinian journalist Fatima Hassouna on Thursday evening, cramming into theatres to watch the documentary about her life in Gaza.

She used to say this would pass, recalled director Sepideh Farsi ahead of a showing of "Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk" in the French Riviera resort town.

"And it will pass. She is not here but yet she is present, they didn't manage to defeat her," Farsi said, her voice breaking.

Hassouna, 25, had been determined to come to the Cannes Film Festival to see the documentary despite the difficulties posed by Israel's blockade, Farsi told Reuters ahead of the screenings.

She was "glowing with joy" the day she learned the film had been selected, Farsi added.

The next day, Hassouna was killed in an Israeli airstrike on her home.

Her death prompted the usually apolitical festival to issue a statement mourning her as one of "the far too many victims of the violence" in the region.

"Although a film is a small thing in the face of such a tragedy," its screening as part of the ACID independent film programme would be a way to honour the journalist, said the festival last month.

DON'T LOOK AWAY

The screenings coincide with "Nakba Day" -- when Palestinians commemorate the loss of their land following the 1948 war at the birth of the state of Israel -- as Israeli military operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank have again displaced hundreds of thousands.

The war has destroyed large swathes of Gaza and forced most of the more than 2 million people who live there to move multiple times, clinging on in tents or bombed-out houses and other makeshift shelters.

Farsi said she was doing all she could to bring the film and exhibition of Hassouna's photos, which document life in Gaza amid the war, to as many people as possible.

"Those who wanted to look away perhaps will now be confronted with her simplicity, her force, and she's gone now, and they know it," said the Tehran-born director.

Farsi added that she received a report this week from the London-based Forensic Architecture research group that had found Hassouna had been a target.

"It's hard to believe, it's like science fiction," she said.

"What many people want, is for this war to stop and for the civilian population not to be targeted like this. Monstrously."

The Israeli army said in a statement on Thursday that it had struck a militant in Gaza City overnight on April 16.

"Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence," it said.

(Reporting by Hanna Rantala, Francesca Halliwell and Miranda Murray in Cannes and Maytaal Angel in Jerusalem; Editing by Sandra Maler)