BBC News Arabic announces new documentary Gaza 101: Emergency Rescue offering unparalleled access to Gaza’s emergency response services
Feras #Feras
BBC News Arabic, from the BBC World Service, announces the release of Gaza 101: Emergency Rescue. A powerful new film offering unprecedented access to the frontline of the Israel-Gaza war through the eyes of first responders.
The film, shot by local Palestinian journalist Feras Al-Ajrami, offers rare, intimate access to the work of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), an independent humanitarian organisation which is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
The PRCS is the leading provider of emergency medical services in Gaza, treating thousands at PRCS run hospitals, providing vital first aid, taking the injured to hospitals and sheltering displaced people.
The PRCS’s ambulance service is the first to respond when civilians call 101, the Gaza emergency number. Filmmaker Al-Ajrami spent the first month of the war embedded with the PRCS and documented the experiences of four Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics.
They work under difficult conditions especially when Israel cuts communications across Gaza and they are unable to respond to emergency calls amidst heavy aerial bombardment – part of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign.
Featuring extensive testimony from the PRCS crew as they conduct their rescue missions, the film shows the extreme psychological toll of providing humanitarian services in a warzone as well as the immense personal sacrifices the crew are making in a time of war.
The powerful film offers audiences a glimpse at the devastation of the war for civilians, including children, and provides crucial context for audiences of what many are now calling a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, following months of intense warfare and limited access to supplies and aid.
On October 7th Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza – the deadliest in Israel’s history. In retaliation the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) immediately began a massive campaign of air strikes on targets in Gaza.
More than 27,700 Palestinians have been killed and at least 65,000 injured by the war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israel has repeatedly rejected claims it deliberately targets civilians, accusing Hamas of hiding in and around civilian infrastructure.
BBC News Arabic, from the BBC World Service, announces the release of Gaza 101: Emergency Rescue. A powerful new film offering unprecedented access to the frontline of the Israel-Gaza war through the eyes of first responders.
The film, shot by local Palestinian journalist Feras Al-Ajrami, offers rare, intimate access to the work of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), an independent humanitarian organisation which is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
The PRCS is the leading provider of emergency medical services in Gaza, treating thousands at PRCS run hospitals, providing vital first aid, taking the injured to hospitals and sheltering displaced people.
The PRCS’s ambulance service is the first to respond when civilians call 101, the Gaza emergency number. Filmmaker Al-Ajrami spent the first month of the war embedded with the PRCS and documented the experiences of four Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics.
They work under difficult conditions especially when Israel cuts communications across Gaza and they are unable to respond to emergency calls amidst heavy aerial bombardment – part of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign.
Featuring extensive testimony from the PRCS crew as they conduct their rescue missions, the film shows the extreme psychological toll of providing humanitarian services in a warzone as well as the immense personal sacrifices the crew are making in a time of war.
The powerful film offers audiences a glimpse at the devastation of the war for civilians, including children, and provides crucial context for audiences of what many are now calling a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, following months of intense warfare and limited access to supplies and aid.
On October 7th Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza – the deadliest in Israel’s history. In retaliation the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) immediately began a massive campaign of air strikes on targets in Gaza.
More than 27,700 Palestinians have been killed and at least 65,000 injured by the war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israel has repeatedly rejected claims it deliberately targets civilians, accusing Hamas of hiding in and around civilian infrastructure.
Gaza 101: Emergency Rescue is available in the UK on BBC iPlayer from 6am Tuesday 13 February. International audiences can watch the film on BBC News Arabic TV at 1730 GMT Tuesday 13 February and on the BBC News Arabic and BBC World Service YouTube channels.
Read the full story on the BBC News Website on Tuesday 13 February.
Gaza 101: Emergency Rescue was filmed by Feras Al-Ajrami and produced by BBC News Arabic.
CC2
[translated from Arabic]
Why did you decide to film the work of the PRCS?
I wanted to document what I was witnessing. Many events were just not being told by the media – how these paramedics were living and what their lives were like. At the end of the day, they’re just like other people who are in Gaza, they feel and see what’s happening around them. They’re also always the first people to show up on any scene. They are the first ones to respond to whatever’s happening, whether that be a bombing or something else. I am a first-aider and a filmmaker, so I combined both experiences to document this.
What was it like on the frontlines of the war witnessing casualties?
You see martyred (dead) children, families screaming, fire, blood, all sorts of things. The memory of all of this is quite engraved in my brain, not just my phone or camera. You remember it all after you see it. Sometimes I just stop filming and start helping when I see children and vulnerable people at risk. And sometimes the number of casualties is so high that you just have to help people. Sometimes there are strikes on more than one place at the same time.
In the first weeks of the war, I was in the ambulance, and we were ready to help people, when suddenly the place where we were in Al Awda Hospital was bombed, with a powerful barrage of airstrikes. I have survived death several times while working with medical teams.
It was a great risk to cross between the north and south of Gaza, but I continued my work and documented everything around me with my camera and mobile phone, day and night, despite the difficulties and the tragic scenes that I was witnessing, including massacres, pulling children from under the rubble, and hearing the cries of injured children. All of this was in the absence of proper capabilities to help the paramedics and a lack of communication.
How do the medics find respite while working under heavy conditions for long periods?
There’s no respite. This war is unlike anything else. Maybe sometimes when there are no strikes, when it’s a bit calm, they’d clean the ambulance car, speak to their families and make sure that they were okay.
Logistically, how did you manage filming in a war zone under bombardment?
You have to be ready to film everything but also know when you need to stop. When they targeted the vicinity of Al-Awda hospital, the camera wasn’t next to me, I just started filming on my phone, while we were being shelled. You have to be ready to film all the time. Sometimes I don’t even take off my shoes as you have to be on standby all the time. I used to keep my shoes on for days.
What have you taken away from your experience filming Gaza 101?
I managed to document things nobody else was documenting. Not everyone has access to being in ambulances and being first on the scene. It’s been a really difficult and dangerous experience. When my colleagues and fellow paramedics were killed in northern Gaza, I took pictures of their bodies and pictures of the funeral and their burial. One of the most difficult moments of my life were when I saw my paramedic colleagues, who had been with me just an hour before they were killed. I had been with them and filmed them saving people’s lives after a house was targeted. We were eating together, then I suddenly lost them.
Notes
About BBC News Arabic
BBC News Arabic offers independent and impartial news to over 32 million people weekly worldwide. It is the BBC’s second largest and oldest non-English language service and launched on 3 January 1938.
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