Stories of the horrors of life in Gaza have been reported, but never first hand. Observers and reporters are not allowed in by the occupying Israeli forces, and Palestinians are not allowed to leave. Some of the only witnesses to the atrocities happening there are a handful of international medical workers, who have managed to breach this effective news blackout.
In Daniele Rugo’s film, Life Support, they speak out, and just as importantly share footage from inside Gaza to tell a story the world needs to wake up to, and stop pretending isn’t happening. The Israelis characterise their action in Gaza as a war on Hamas terrorists, but as one of the doctors tells us early on in the film, ‘this is a war on civilians’. The catalogue of horrors is ceaseless and unrelenting. We witness scenes from hell, except of course they are not from hell, they are from a place it was possible for people to visit less than three years ago.
Gaza was then a functioning state with schools, hospitals, businesses, coffee bars and all the outward appearance of a beautiful and successful country, albeit living under Israeli rule. This film shows us a stark and sickening contrast. We witness the largest medical complex, Al Shifa, bombed, mass graves uncovered, intensive care babies left to starve and die, over 1000 health care workers killed with more than 100 of them held captive, Israelis denying the entry of food, baby formula food confiscated at the border control points and malnutrition leading to a man-made famine. Clear, irrefutable, eye-witness accounts of genocide and war crimes.
This is a film the world needs to see, but Gaza is now rarely mentioned on the daily news. We have become distracted by other world events. It is hard not to think that the perpetrators must now be thinking they can act with impunity, because they have got away with these war crimes for so long. It will horrify anyone who sees it, but my greatest fear for this film is that the people with the power to stop this, will ignore it.
