After
Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, Bakri interviewed residents of the Jenin refugee camp and produced a film based on their testimony,
Jenin, Jenin. Some of the survivors described a massacre of hundreds of people. After three showings the film was banned by the Israeli Film Board, which claimed it was not a documentary as it showed only one side of the story. Nevertheless, Bakri showed the film at the
Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem cinematheques and Arab theatres such as
Al-Midan in
Haifa. Bakri petitioned the High Court of Justice for prohibiting the screening of the film on the grounds that it distorted the truth. After a long fight, the court rejected the censor's decision. In 2004, the Israeli High Court finally upheld its earlier overturn of the ban, but joined the Film Board in labeling the film a "propagandistic lie" based on Israeli sources that acknowledged only 52 Palestinian deaths, 38 of whom Israeli sources argued were armed fighters. In 2007, five soldiers who fought in the Jenin refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 sued the cinematheques in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for screening the film in the midst of the ban, and sued Bakri for 2.5 million NIS for producing the film.
Jenin-Jenin earned two awards: the best film award at the
2002 Carthage International Film Festival and the International Prize for Mediterranean Documentary Filmmaking and Reporting. Israeli right-wing group
Im Tirtzu organized a campaign against Bakri. Im Tirtzu opposed a production of
Federico García Lorca's
The House of Bernarda Alba in which Bakri played the role of Bernarda. The play was produced in 2012 at Tel Aviv's Tzavta Theater. Israel's Academy of the Performing Arts was behind the production. While refusing Im Tirtzu's request to intervene, Culture Minister
Limor Livnat criticized the judgment of the theater's administration.{{cite news |title=Behind the curtain of a right-wing campaign against an Israeli-Arab actor |first=Michael |last=Handelzalts |url=https://www.haaretz.com/culture/arts-leisure/behind-the-curtain-of-a-right-wing-campaign-against-an-israeli-arab-actor-1.410100 Bakri consistently emphasized his
Palestinian identity throughout his career. ==Personal life and death==