In the absence of foreign media, doctors are valuable witnesses to the Israel-Hamas conflict in Daniele Rugo\u2019s documentary<\/p>\n
Dying children and grieving parents are a fact of her work says Canadian paediatric intensive care doctor Tanya Haj-Hassan. \u201cBut Gaza is that continuously,\u201d she adds, wiping away a tear. Haj-Hassan is one of several doctors who are interviewed in Daniele Rugo\u2019s documentary about their medical missions to Gaza since October 2023. Doctors tend to be careful with their words and don\u2019t instinctively reach for overstatement or exaggeration. But their measured accounts of hell on earth, along with clips from their video diaries, make this quietly devastating film almost unbearable to watch.<\/p>\n
Israel does not allow foreign reporters into Gaza unless under military escort, so medics are valuable independent witnesses. Nick Maynard is a gastrointestinal surgeon who has been visiting since 2010. He has always seen destruction in Gaza, he says, but after October 2023, it was on different scale. On his first night, ER doctor James Smith tried to count the number of explosions; he lost track after several hundred. Reconstructive surgeon Victoria Rose arrived with 23 suitcases after putting a call to UK plastic surgeons for supplies. On a later visit she was permitted to cross the border with just one.<\/p>\n
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