Ruins Near Kibbutzim in Israel

Al Jazeera recently released an article about the Japanese photojournalist Ryuichi Hirokawa.

In 1967, after completing university, he travelled to Israel.

"I entered a kibbutz. In Japan they wrote that all kibbutzim were paradise," he said, noting he arrived shortly before the outbreak of the Six-Day War. "I changed my mind. In Japan we were taught that war is bad, but people were celebrating."

Hirokawa, who made a recent appearance at the second International Palestinian Conference for Media and Communications in Turkey, recalled finding ruins near the kibbutz.

"I asked people what these ruins were but no one answered," he said, noting as he began to explore and research the ruins further, he began to learn about the history of the Palestinian plight. "I started finding villages and I studied what happened. It took me more than 30 years, but I would take pictures and make documentaries about Palestinian villages. (Al Jazeera.)