Médecins Sans Frontières - Gaza - Between Two Wars (ENG)

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF149646

Date taken / Date Recorded 12/04/2015 12:00 AM

Country Palestinian Territories

Commissioning section MSF-FRANCE

Photographer / videographer / producer Susanne Doettling

Copyright MSF

Usage Rights (MSF) Internal Use Only

Formal Consent Copy available no

Editor's rating ★★★★★ (C)

Video format h264 (Constrained Baseline) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 3m35s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 419.35 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist Gaza
7th July 2014 was the beginning of 50 days of intensive bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli army.
One year later, most of the 12,000 homes that were reduced to rubble are still not rebuilt.
It looks like the bombing of Gaza, which left over 2,000 people dead, ended only yesterday. One year since the last bomb fell, the people of Gaza continue to live in the ruins of their homes, their wounds and suffering just as present.
During operation Protective Edge, 11,000 people—one third of them children—were injured. They’re not allowed to leave Gaza to get treatment. It is here, on this strip of land, where the economy has ground to a halt and there is no vision for the future that the people of Gaza struggle to survive.
Bombs flattened the town of Beit Hanoun in the north of Gaza Strip. Hajja lives here with her brother—and her memories of their twenty relatives killed one summer evening in 2014.
A year ago, 20-year old Nadir was studying architecture. Mistaking the gas canister he was carrying for a weapon, Israeli soldiers shot at him and it exploded. Nadir suffered burns to his hands, arms, back and abdomen.

Nadir, young Palestinian (male, in Arabic)
I was studying Architecture. I finished two years of studies, but now I cannot, I cannot write I cannot draw so I just stay home doing nothing.

MSF surgeons have operated on Nadir and Hajja is receiving physiotherapy treatment. The teams constantly hear similar stories from their other patients.

Alexandre Duhoux, surgeon, MSF (in English)
We are going to treat a small child, five years old. He has been burned ten days ago, on the arms and on the back. So it's acute burn surgery, to remove the burn and place new skin on it, skin graft.

Whenever there’s a lull in the conflict, Palestinians return to their everyday lives—and the humiliation and oppression they are subjected to daily in Gaza and the West Bank.
Iman, who was injured during a bomb explosion, now wants to become a lawyer:

Iman, young woman (in Arabic)
I never wanted to advocate or speak out about what is really going on here. It is not easy for me to speak out, but now, I have to. I want to deliver a message to everyone: we are suffering and we need help to stop this suffering.

8-year old children in Gaza have known nothing but the blockade since they were born. And they’ve already lived through four offensives, two of which were wholesale massacres. These repeated past experiences lead people to fear the imminence of yet more bloodshed.

Mathilde Berthelot, programme manager, MSF (in French)
The Israeli government justifies its offensives as a response to violence. But this violence, which for decades has served as an alibi for a policy which is repressive and expansionist, cannot be legitimized. A year after the latest war in Gaza, we are no longer able to accept this alibi so we must take an even bigger stand for the people of Palestine.

Working in Gaza for 15 years, Médecins Sans Fontières is witness to the intolerable impact the Israeli occupation has on the population... Humanitarian aid, which the people of Gaza so depend on for their survival, will not be enough to offer a future to the million children still living in bombed-out ruins.