Born in Gaza is a Spanish documentary directed by Hernán Zin, released in 2014 and filmed in the aftermath of the Gaza War. "With just a camera and almost no budget" – according to Zin's IndieGoGo page that aims to fund a follow-up film – viewers look deep into the crisis of Gaza, Palestine's largest city, as told by ten children. Almost ten years later, global attention has turned towards Palestine and Israel again after the recent attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023 – though this wasn't the beginning of the Palestine-Israel conflict. As the Israel-Hamas War has continued, many voices have called out what has since been happening to Palestine (at Israel's hands) as genocide.
Watching Born in Gaza can introduce viewers to a situation that many people still don't or won't comprehend. Currently available to stream on Netflix, the documentary is easily accessible for so many viewers. While it obviously doesn't examine the situation in 2023 that's currently unfolding, it does illustrate the unfathomable experiences of the people of Palestine (particularly its youngest and largest population) in the fallout of war. Born in Gaza is one of the most essential movies that anyone could watch right now – here's why.
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It Details the Region’s Historic Conflicts
As the plight of Palestine continues, this film serves as a window into the area's history, especially about that particular pocket in time. You don't necessarily have to know much about the conflict before watching Born in Gaza, and you'll come away with a better understanding of life in Palestine as a result. Watching the film in 2023 tragically means that much of what viewers see on screen is now gone – decimated by the offensive that began in October. It's hard to watch Born in Gaza and wonder how many of the people who appear onscreen are now dead.
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On a title card, viewers read in Spanish (translated here to English), "1,475 Palestinians died between July 7 and August 26, 2014. 70% of the dead children were younger than 12 years old." This segment is followed by the hundreds of names and ages of victims appearing onscreen one at a time. Al Jazeera reported as of November 4, 2023, that "The Palestinian death toll reached 9,448, according to the health ministry in Gaza."
In one of his interviews, a boy named Hamada says, "Ramallah's government, Fatah's, Hamas's and many others tell us that they are going to help us, but they lie." Conflating this statement with what's happened in 2023 speaks for itself. It should go without saying that Born in Gaza shouldn't be the only source of information that anyone consumes about the historic conflict between these regions. If anything, it merely begins to educate viewers more about the relationship between youth, life, and war that the people of Palestine have continually stared in the face.
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It Follows the Younger Generation
Born in Gaza looks into the lives and everyday experiences of ten children who call this city home. Kids dressed in bright colors always look extremely out of place among crumbling buildings and hills of wreckage. Regardless of where they happen to live, they are just kids who need to attend school, eat meals, and hopefully grow up to live successful lives – but so many of them never got or will never get the chance. The Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) stated in a 2023 report heading, "The Palestinian Population is Young; more than One-third of the Population is Less than 15 Years."
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Born in Gaza delves into the lives of each featured child and the loved ones who weather life in Gaza with them, allowing the kids to sit down in front of the camera or walk around with it to give individual interviews. The children share their dreams for their futures, their day-to-day activities, and what they think about life beyond their current circumstances. So many other conversations center around the traumas they face.
A girl named Sondos shows the camera the scars across her stomach and screams in pain at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest medical center that had its ambulances targeted by an airstrike in November 2023. Amid the devastation they inhabit, children even express their suicidal thoughts and actions. "We need some sort of psychological treatment," Hamada says. "We need to be taken abroad for help and forget what happened. We keep remembering everything on and on."
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It Advocates for Palestinian Survival
While Born in Gaza is one of the most devastating and eye-opening films to watch in 2023, it's also one of the most important and necessary things that you could ever watch at this present time in history. As a human being, it should be impossible to watch this film and not feel broken as a result, before the credits even start rolling. Regardless of its editing, cinematography, and sound mixing, the actual content being filmed captures the focus of watching eyes. Toddlers waddle through rubble in the streets. Kids pour water on top of the leaves that cover Rajaf's father's buried body. Born in Gaza really transcends expectations for an average documentary, emphasizing the affected people at its heart more than anything else.
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So many of the movie's images might feel like they're blending together as you watch – the motif of dead and injured children is inescapable, but so is the reality of life in Palestine under continued offensives by Israel. Born in Gaza is a film that quite literally becomes more powerful when it is shared, so if you watch it and learn from it, recommend it to someone else. The people of Palestine deserve to live freely and in peace, and amplifying their voices and perspectives is more essential now than ever.