Journalists have been banned from entering Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. In Daniel Rugo\u2019s new documentary, a group of international medics act as first-hand witnesses to the conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019re not seeing what I\u2019m seeing,\u2019 is the documentary\u2019s opening gambit, delivered by the straight-talking Dr Victoria Rose, a British plastic and reconstructive surgeon. With the absence of international media on the ground in Gaza, Rugo\u00a0claims\u00a0that what most people are learning about Israel\u2019s action in Gaza are \u2018lies\u2019. Filmed from October 2023 to 2025, the 10 physicians featured, which includes surgeons, paediatricians and obstetricians, are here to set their record straight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Life Support is forensic in its delivery. Understated, to-the-point and rational, it lays out the war in chronological order, splicing footage of Gaza, iPhone videos and sobering interviews with the doctors. We see the erosion of life in Palestine first-hand. Heartbreaking footage from 2022 shows a\u00a0teeming beach: horses walk along the shore, people lounge under beach umbrellas, and children play in the surf. On Dr Rose\u2019s first filmed visit in late 2023, she arrives with 23 suitcases packed with medical equipment. Returning almost a year later, she\u2019s only allowed one medium-sized piece of luggage, which she fills with children\u2019s clothes, food, and a few essential medical instruments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0We see the erosion of life in Palestine first-hand<\/p>\n
Talking into their grainy iPhone cameras, the medics recount disturbing fact after disturbing fact: a ban on sanitary products means civilians are deprived of soap, shampoo and toothpaste; a targeted block on baby formula entering Gaza means that newborns have to be fed on a nutrient-less mixture of sugar and water; a group of teenage boys are all deliberately shot in their testicles by Israeli soldiers when queuing for water.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a hard watch. Many scenes are unbearable. We see hundreds of desperate people holding out containers and crying for food, severely malnourished children, and entire families living on the floor of a half bombed-out hospital. Mercifully, Life Support is only\u00a090 minutes long. Although it\u2019s a slow burn, the destruction of Palestine is relentless. There is no grand crescendo, instead it reveals a steady and terrifying creep towards Gaza\u2019s total devastation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Life Support wraps up with a\u00a0strong case for why the mass killing of the Palestinian people should be classed as a genocide, including a grave speech from the UN\u2019s Navi Pillay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Whatever you want to call it, it is not right, and it needs to stop,\u2019 says Dr Rose. It\u2019s not a happy watch, but Life Support is an urgent and essential piece of reportage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In UK and Ireland cinemas now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Journalists have been banned from entering Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2332,228302,166884,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-684363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-film-documentaries","tag-more-recommended","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}