Children of Gaza - Dispatches

[Chuck]

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/d...s-56/episode-1

In December 2008, the Israeli Defence Force unleashed a campaign to destroy the ability of Hamas to launch rockets and mortars into Israel. Around 300 children were among the 1,300 Palestinians that were killed.

After the ceasefire, BAFTA-winning filmmaker Jezza Neumann arrived in Gaza to follow the lives of three children over a year.

Surrounded by the remnants of the demolished Gaza Strip and increasingly isolated by the blockade that prevents anyone from rebuilding their homes and their lives, Children of Gaza is a shocking, touching and uniquely intimate reflection on extraordinary courage in the face of great adversity.

[Supreme]

I watched this. It's heartbreaking how these people live. It broke my heart especially that that poor little girl has shrapnel in her head and has to deal with being disabled for her whole life, and that the Israeli surgeon couldn't do anything when they took her to Tel Aviv. That was the saddest part of the film.

[aadil77]

These israeli pussy terrorists will burn in hell along with all those who support them, they're only capable of killing civilians and non-combatants. Let them come face to face with the afghan or chechnyan mujahideen and they'd get merked

[aadil77]

I am watchin this right now and just wondering how long till the israeli propaganga kicks in

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[Chuck]

I'll post the comments on the review of this episode they speak for themselves:

dizzylizzy
16 Mar 2010, 10:09AM

Last night's Dispatches was extremely sad.
I find it odd that you choose to focus on Mahmoud's uncle and the part about suicide bombings, which was a very small fraction of the programme.
This is an unbalanced review of the programme.
How about the little girl with shrapnel in her head, destined to live with migraines, nose bleeds and vision problems thanks to Israel. she was burried in rubble for four day and watched her uncle's head being blown off. She lost her father, her brother and her house has been reduced to rubble.
This child was terrified of going to israel because she thought they were going to kill her. And who would blame her?

What about the little girl who lives in a tent because she has no home now and has so little hope that when she is asked what she wishes for, all she can think to say is 'to die'. And she is only twelve.

And yet you make a trite comment about hatred being so deeply ingrained. It is this inability to see the humanity of the Palestinians or to comment on their plight in a balanced way that makes this conflict so misunderstood. These are children whose lives have been destroyed.

What a disgraceful review.

joedoone
16 Mar 2010, 10:55AM

@shiv - your eyes should remain unrolled. Israeli reaction to Palestinian attacks, as in Gaza, tends to be completely disproportionate, but any criticism of Israeli methods gets written off as anti-Israel or antisemitic. How many Israelis died in the Gaza conflict, compared to 1300 Palestinians? As I posted above, Israel needs to address the reason why it is attacked. Israel needs to do the right thing.

sevensisters007
16 Mar 2010, 1:40PM

I completely agree that this is a disgraceful review of Children of Gaza. You say 'the situation is not helped by the adults'. The program showed teachers, relatives, doctors, nurses and counsellors all deeply involved in trying to heal these children, and defuse their entirely justifable desire for revenge. What courage and grace those adults themselves must have, to be able to channel their own anger and grief into the patient reconstruction of damaged lives. We should all be supporting peaceful means of resistance to the Israeli occupation, most particularly the Palestinian call for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions - only by putting international pressure on Israel to finally abide by international law can we end this brutal seige. Then the people of Gaza might not feel that violence is their best and only option.

mamz
16 Mar 2010, 3:37PM

The author of this review should be ashamed of himself. Sam Wollaston is clearly just an agenda driven bigot who's prejudices stop him from seeing the reality as it is. The offensive was a war crime where children were massacred, and it was apparently in retaliation rockets being fired into Israel. Well if Israel didn't block off the Gaza strip as soon as democracy prevailed in it and Hamas was elected into government, transforming it into a giant prison, then militants wouldn't have felt the need to fire those rockets.

You are a disgrace to humanity, for you have the same mainframe that allowed the holocaust to be perpetuated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...ildren-of-gaza

[AhlaamBella]

I had a similar convo with my dad (non-muslim). I described a young boy whose house had been blown up, his family killed before his eyes, he has lost everything. If he decides to fight the Israeli or british or american army with a bomb he makes or a gun he gets hold of. - Does this make the boy a terrorist/extremist?

My dad said yes.

:imsad

[aadil77]

I had a similar convo with my dad (non-muslim). I described a young boy whose house had been blown up, his family killed before his eyes, he has lost everything. If he decides to fight the Israeli or british or american army with a bomb he makes or a gun he gets hold of. - Does this make the boy a terrorist/extremist?

My dad said yes.

:imsad

Sorry to say this but your dad must be quite ignorant

Tell him under the terrorism act, killing military personel is not an act of terrorism, so it does not make you a terrorist

[AhlaamBella]

Sorry to say this but your dad must be quite ignorant

Tell him under the terrorism act, killing military personel is not an act of terrorism, so it does not make you a terrorist

Don't be sorry. My Dad's determined disbelief and lack of understanding has been apparent to me since I was 10.