hen I sat down to pen this piece I sifted through a long list of movies and TV series on Palestine – by both Palestinians and by foreigners. I wanted to pick a single work and dive into detail but Palestinian history is multifaceted and embedded in the land they cannot call their own.

When Israeli forces began their fifth war on Gaza in 2023, they were quite clear about their genocidal intentions. Every action was a reflection of the past wars on the strip of land that spans just 41 kilometres.

5 Broken Cameras shows a world where the first words of a child are “Jidar [the wall]” and “Jesh [the army]” followed by “run, run.” The children grow up watching resistance and supporting it. Their impressionable minds wonder why their elders are being taken away without a plausible reason.

When these children grow up, they witness deaths of people close to them; family and friends. They watch their siblings being blown to bits. They remember their friends calling to them one second and being a heap of flesh and bone the next. They remember being physically gifted, running around and playing in their house one moment and having no roof, no family, no toys and no limbs the next moment. Born in Gaza and Death in Gaza are documentaries on the testimonies of the children of Gaza. Testimonies like these, if not worse, are flooding our social media today. With more than 12,000 children already among the casualties and over 1.1 million of the population being children, these stories are likely to be just the beginning. A child is seen collecting the fragments of his family members from the street; another reports seeing birds eating the corpses.

Young adults in Palestine become aware of the horrendous living conditions that are imposed on them. Omar is the story of a baker who overcomes all obstacles to be with his love, Nadia, despite a wall between the two in the West Bank. The film, which won several awards, was scripted in four days by director Hany Abu-Assad. This shows that the stories behind Palestinian movies are original. The trauma imparted by the Israeli occupation is wedged and embedded deep in the minds of every artist. The art generated from Palestine portrays the daily atrocities and barbaric acts of the Israeli regime in every work.

200 Metres follows Mustafa and his family separated by a wall in the city of Tulkarm by a mere 200 metres in between. When his wife says that his son is sick and Mustafa is denied a permit across the wall; in his desperation he resorts to joining an activist Kifah and German photographer Anne in an attempt to cross the wall with the help of some smugglers.

Another movie, The Present is focused on a much simpler task – buying a fridge as a wedding anniversary gift. The 25-minute short film shows the dehumanisation that Palestinians are subjected to in front of their families, including children. The story of Yusef and Yasmein is one of many. The scene which depicts Palestinians standing in a queue to cross the border was filmed at the crack of dawn at an actual Israeli checkpost.

…the abominable and spine-chilling diegesis are not fiction but have been an ongoing reality for Palestinians since 1948.

In Palestine, no one is spared. Access to medical resources is blocked by the occupation forces. Prior to the genocide, 50 percent of the women were anaemic. During it, Israel blocked access to medical resources for all including the children, the differently-abled, the elderly and pregnant women. The movie 3000 Nights follows Layal, a schoolteacher wrongly accused of being an accomplice to a boy hurling stones at tanks. Abandoned by her husband and giving birth to her son in shackles in a medical facility designated for prisoners, Layal is subjected to constant threats of taking her son away. The baby is her only source of hope after being wrongfully convicted.

Stealing her son is just one way in which the Israelis mentally torture women like Layal. Videos circulating on social media show some women holding children and white flags getting shot down in front of their families. A mother recounts how a sniper killed the infant child she was cradling in her arms while they were evacuating. She was then forced to leave the body in the middle of the road.

Palestinians are resilient. One would assume that the youth would like to escape the open-air prison. However, movies such as Ambulance show how determined the youth are to protect their people. Doctors like Hammam Alloh refuse to leave their patients, staying loyal to their oaths till their last breath. With only six ambulances left for almost 2 million people and the last functioning hospital besieged, the Palestinian youth do not falter.

5 Broken Cameras, Gaza Fights for Freedom and Miral are full of testimonies of victims, healthcare workers, journalists and civilians. Israel keeps murdering journalists who try to film the destruction. The dead include Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya. The injured include Wael Al-Dahdouh. Many including Bisan have been displaced. Many more like Noor and Hind have been separated from their families.

The Israeli forced have targeted and bombed hospitals, ambulances, healthcare workers and patients. One of the latest stories has been of Palestinian doctor, Hani Bseiso, amputating his daughter’s leg at home, A volunteer from an Indonesian hospital has reported how besieged doctors and patients were tortured and killed for trying to move corpses to the door.

Israeli atrocities know no bounds. For years, Palestinians have been narrating these stories in the form of films and documentaries. The abhorrent actions have been streaming on popular platforms for ages but haven’t received the attention they deserved prior to Gaza becoming a social media trend in 2023. The Law in these Parts, Tantura, The Time that Remains, Killing Gaza, A World Not Ours and Salt of this Sea are an introduction to the cold-blooded, remorseless Israeli regime. These are just a few of the stories that capture the situation on the ground. It goes without saying that these are not fiction but an ongoing reality for Palestinians since 1948.

The writer is an undergraduate student of psychology at FC College, Lahore