Gaza: Before 7 October

This documentary was filmed in May, 2023. It illustrates some of the challenges that existed prior to the full-scale war that began on 7 October, including the challenges faced by medical professionals and hospitals due to Israel’s blockade of Gaza. This blockade has long made it extremely difficult to import essential medical items, such C-arms (mobile x-ray machines, essential for orthopaedic surgeries).

However, the film also illustrates that prior to October, there was a robust and functional healthcare system in Gaza, offering advanced surgical care, research and stewardship on antimicrobial resistance among other things.

Dr Sohaib Safi, Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Medical Coordinator Support, explains the impact of successive escalations in violence and fears for the future. In the film he says, "I don't know if in the next couple of years it's going to be an escalation every year - and how life could be like this? I don't know. But we're here and we're trying."

On 6 October 2023, MSF staff were running medical humanitarian activities that included tending to patients wounded by so-called butterfly bullets, fired by Israeli snipers at people as they protested in the days and weeks prior to the war that engulfed the region on 7 October. We were also treating 87 patients for long-term injuries (down from an original patient cohort of almost 900), sustained in the Great March of Return escalation in 2018 and 2019.

Today that healthcare system no longer exists; it has been systematically dismantled in bombing, fighting, as well as the killing, abuse and arrest of medical professionals and patients.