In case you had any lingering doubts that #Israel was committing #war crimes# in #Gaza, a documentary the #BBC was too afraid to screen is a must-watch.
The cowardly decision – after months when the British corporation said it was «reviewing» screening the film while it investigated another, entirely different documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone was announced with mealy-mouthed reasoning. BBC bosses said there was a danger that Gaza: Doctors Under Attack could «create the perception of partiality.»
Partiality? Perception? Is the BBC taking its orders directly from Israeli Prime Minister #Benjamin Netanyahu# – that well-known lover of impartiality – himself?
Maintaining balance
Gaza: Doctors Under Attack goes to extraordinary lengths to maintain balance as its presenter #Ramita Navai# pursues a forensic investigation into what is clearly a deliberate policy by the Israel Defence Forces to target Palestinian doctors, medics, their families and hospitals in Gaza.
The latest victim – killed since the film was released early July – is Marwan al-Sultan, a renowned cardiologist and director of the #Indonesian Hospital3 in Gaza. He was the 70th Palestinian healthcare worker to be killed in the last 50 days, according to Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW), a Palestinian medical organisation.
He was the 70th Palestinian healthcare worker to be killed in the last 50 days
International law
Doctors, medics, and civilian hospitals in war zones are all afforded protection under #international law#. If it is suspected that hospitals are being used to shield enemy positions (Israel consistently claims that #Hamas have built underground command centres beneath medical facilities), only «proportionate» force is allowed. Civilian casualties must be minimised.
Israel does none of this. It offers no evidence for its claims that it is attacking hospitals in Gaza because Hamas are abusing them to shelter their commanders. It denies that it is targeting doctors and their families. It claims that the destruction of nearly all of Gaza’s 36 hospitals is justified.
This film gives the lie to that claim.
Step by bloody step, Navai guides us through interviews with doctors, footage shot on a mobile phone, or scenes released by the #IDF itself, that Israel is committing war crimes with impunity.
From the broken bodies of children struck by missiles as they lie in hospital beds to the doctor whose entire family was wiped out in a ‘double tap’ strike where a precisely targeted missile destroyed his family home before a drone finished off his wife and daughter, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack demonstrates a murderous consistency in Israel’s violence against medics.
The film relies on multiple sources, carefully noting where doctors who are interviewed have expressed support for Hamas or for the attack on Israel in October 2023 that sparked Israel’s war on Gaza and its civilian population. It notes the number of Israelis killed in the Hamas attack, citing its sources. And it does the same for the IDF soldiers killed in the war (some 400 so far) and the 50,000 and climbing number of Palestinians killed – the vast majority civilians, including at least 17,000 children.
It does not confine itself to Palestinian sources. It finds researchers exposing the «black sites» where Palestinian suspects are rounded up by the IDF, stripped and bound, before being taken to prison in Israel, where they are routinely beaten, denied medical care, and, in some cases, abused and tortured by Israeli doctors. The IDF and Israeli prisons deny all this, but this film finds Israeli doctors and prison guards willing to talk (albeit without being identified for their own safety).
The rape, retribution and normalisation of dehumanising Palestinians adds another level of revulsion to the crimes Israel is committing in Gaza.
No cheap shots
The film never takes cheap shots: when it visits a memorial to those murdered by Hamas in October 2023, that also serves as an observation point for Israelis to watch the bombing of Gaza, it does not mention how many Israelis revel in that destruction.
Israel will undoubtedly dismiss the film as «antisemitic» – its routine conflation of criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews.
That is nonsense. The proof is abundantly clear. Israel is committing war crimes day in, day out, and targeting doctors and hospitals is part of a genocidal plan to cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
Watch it for yourself here: in the UK via Channel 4 and internationally via Zeteo.
