Launching globally on Youtube today, “This is Gaza” is a powerful eyewitness account of life under siege, as filmmaker Yousef Hammash risks everything to document the war and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.
“This is Gaza” is a powerful eyewitness account of life under siege, as filmmaker Yousef Hammash risks everything to document the war and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.
Launched globally today on Youtube the documentary from Channel 4 News underscores the urgent need for unrestricted international media access to reveal the truth on the ground chartered through the lens of Yousef’s personal experience.
“We were thrown in front of the beast of war. And we were like small cats. My response was to pick up a weapon, my video camera. We would film, send the footage out, people will see it, they will react. I will save my family. It seemed obvious.”
My response was to pick up a weapon, my video camera. We would film, send the footage out, people will see it, they will react.
The film exposes the raw reality of the conflict and the extraordinary work of Palestinian journalists inside the Gaza Strip, with never before seen footage.
Yousef and the Channel 4 News team were awarded the prestigious Emmy and Bafta Awards for reporting the Israel-Hamas war through Yousef’s work and teams on the ground, who he then directed remotely after he was displaced in April 2024.
Yousef Hammash writes:
When the first Gaza ceasefire was announced in November 2023 I thought ‘at least I will be able to sleep.’ But when the bombing started again just a few days later, it was worse than before; a new kind of hell.
Now there is another ceasefire and again we can’t imagine what will follow. As I write, the world is watching thousands of my people walking from tents in the south to rubble in the north. They are desperate to dig up the bodies of their dead and to hug those still alive. The scenes will shock future generations if they aren’t shocking this one. The same goes for the footage in the film “This is Gaza.”
People must understand this conflict from our perspective. I was there. I filmed it all for Channel 4 News. “This is Gaza” is my story.
“My response was to pick up a weapon, my video camera. We would film, send the footage out, people will see it, they will react.”
I was born in Jabalia camp. When people hear the word camp they think of tents but it was a city within a city. We were thirsty to enjoy and have joy. Whenever we had anything to celebrate we would go to extremes with it. If you had anything to celebrate it was as though all the camp would turn up to party with you.
Jabalia is my identity where I was born and raised; married and had my two children, Elie six years old and Ahmed three years old. But now Jabalia is gone. And as I scout the footage of desperate survivors I spot friends and relatives.
Before this I had a decent job with the Norwegian Refugee Council. In September 2023 I even bought a house by the sea. That’s the best thing you can ever have in Gaza. That view of the sea. But suddenly 32 years of building and finding a path to succeed and establish a life just disappeared.
Within hours of the bombing starting, the messages from Israeli leaders made clear Gaza would be destroyed.
We were thrown in front of the beast of war. And we were like small cats. My response was to pick up a weapon, my video camera. We would film, send the footage out, people will see it, they will react. I will save my family. It seemed obvious.
Banning international journalists entering Gaza had a huge impact on us as Palestinian journalists. It gave us more responsibility. At first Gazans wanted to show the world what was going on. Like me they thought exposing the scale of the Israeli response would make the world step up. But soon we lost that faith as we saw friends, neighbours and relatives die or mourn the loss of their own children, parents and siblings – just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or as the world knows it, for being collateral damage.
This was not the first time that Palestinians were abandoned in such a horrible situation in Gaza. I am thinking 2004, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2018. 2019, 2021. My kids have seen more wars than years they have been alive. We are used to dealing with the Israeli war machine but nothing like this siege.
It led to starvation and then mental illness overtook us. All this was fuelled by exhaustion from overnight bombing and then spending the day digging under rubble searching for people. During this war, I filmed a group of children from under the rubble asleep forever with their heads still lying on their pillows in their beds. And somehow even that wasn’t the worst thing I filmed that day.
And then the evacuations. Nothing is more humiliating than displacement and no one wanted to leave their home at the beginning. Why should they?
But we had no choice and hundreds of thousands headed for ‘safe’ zones under orders from the Israeli army. It felt like 1948 again. Suddenly I wasn’t hearing stories from my grandfather about the nakba. I had become the nakba.
“My kids have seen more wars than years they have been alive.”
My own journey led me from Jabalia to Khan Yunis and then to Rafah. Malnutrition, violence and fear were all in high supply. Eventually I had to move my family out of Gaza. Something I never wanted to do. Currently, my wife and children live in a different country to me. And to think, just a couple of years ago I had never even left Gaza.
But this is the curse of being born as Palestinian. You are on a constant move.
About the film:
The 50-minute special, presented by Channel 4 News, is a devastating portrait of life and survival in the besieged territory – before, during, and after the seismic events of October 7th – told through the eyes of Palestinian journalist-turned-refugee Yousef Hammash.
In ‘This is Gaza’, Yousef, who has spent years reporting from the Gaza Strip, steps out from behind the camera for the first time. Watching back his footage, he charts his family’s displacement and the heartbreaking decision to leave his home as he travels south to Rafah.
Foreign journalists have been restricted independent access to Gaza since October 7th. Yousef has since emerged as one of the most definitive Palestinian voices of our time.
With footage from areas international reporters cannot access, this film examines the challenges faced by journalists reporting under bombardment, where the constant threat of violence, political turmoil, and censorship put their lives at risk.
Yousef’s early reporting in the wake of October 7th, broadcast by Channel 4 News, sparked global outrage, and made him and his family a target. After six months reporting on the conflict Yousef was displaced.
