Life And Death in Gaza (BBC2)
Of all the awful and distressing scenes, one was starkly unforgettable. In a derelict apartment, being used as a makeshift bomb shelter, a group of small children played at being rescue workers.
‘Bring her to the ambulance,’ shouted one excitedly, as they hauled a little girl onto a mattress, ‘we have to stop the bleeding.’
During the 90 minutes of Life And Death In Gaza, filmed by amateurs resident in Palestine under the bombardment, I paused or turned away half a dozen times. Many of the images were so deeply pitiful and distressing that it was difficult to keep watching.
As well as the inevitable shots of buildings devastated and body parts scattered across the rubble, the handheld phone footage captured tents blazing in refugee camps, toddlers watching missile attacks at night like a fireworks display, and an explosion shaking a family home as a grandfather cradled a newborn baby.
Many of the images were so deeply pitiful and distressing that it was difficult to keep watching
Thousands of families in the Gaza Strip are living through hell, and we saw this. What must be remembered is that this is a hell invoked by their terrorist masters
But throughout all this, two unspoken thoughts dominated. This carnage is what the Hamas terrorists actively want for the women and children of the Gaza Strip. They deliberately provoked it with the utmost ruthlessness and they continue to hold dozens of hostages, making ceasefire negotiations impossible.
Secondly, all the footage in this first-hand documentary, while undoubtedly genuine, was filmed in the shadow of a murderous regime. We cannot know whether the participants, including a physiotherapist and father-of-five named Khalid, and Aya, a law graduate, felt unconscious pressure to avoid criticising Hamas — though there is no doubting their bravery in sending their testimony to the outside world.
Nor did we see any glimpse of the terrorist foot soldiers — no young men with guns patrolling the streets or commandeering the aid packages dropped by parachute. Hamas ‘health ministry’ figures (that is, propaganda) were quoted as though they were unquestioned fact.
The impression was one of a wholly civilian population driven from one temporary refuge to the next by tanks. Director Natasha Cox made no attempt to explain that this is not the full picture.
The atrocities of October 7 last year were summed up with an ambiguous caption informing us that, ‘Hamas launched an unprecedented assault across the Gaza-Israel border, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 250 others.’
That word ‘unprecedented’ fails to convey any fragment of the horror inflicted on innocent Israelis, including young people at a music festival. And there was no acknowledgment that the stated aim of Hamas is the total obliteration of Israel and the eradication of all Jews ‘from the river to the sea’, as demonstrators in Britain frequently chant.
These are very serious failings for which the BBC should be held to account. At the same time, the visceral power of the videos needs to be recognised.
Thousands of families in the Gaza Strip are living through hell, and we saw this. What must be remembered is that this is a hell invoked by their terrorist masters.
Ali Assaf (C), 20, reportedly the only survivor from his family killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, is comforted by two young men as mourns near the bodies of his relatives in front of the al-Maamadani on October 12
Palestinian children receive drops as part of a polio vaccination campaign in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on October 14
People gather outside a collapsed building to help a man buried in Israeli bombing, Oct 15
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