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Journalists have been banned from entering Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. In Daniel Rugo’s new documentary, a group of international medics act as first-hand witnesses to the conflict.
‘You’re not seeing what I’m seeing,’ is the documentary’s opening gambit, delivered by the straight-talking Dr Victoria Rose, a British plastic and reconstructive surgeon. With the absence of international media on the ground in Gaza, Rugo claims that what most people are learning about Israel’s action in Gaza are ‘lies’. Filmed from October 2023 to 2025, the 10 physicians featured, which includes surgeons, paediatricians and obstetricians, are here to set their record straight.
Life Support is forensic in its delivery. Understated, to-the-point and rational, it lays out the war in chronological order, splicing footage of Gaza, iPhone videos and sobering interviews with the doctors. We see the erosion of life in Palestine first-hand. Heartbreaking footage from 2022 shows a teeming beach: horses walk along the shore, people lounge under beach umbrellas, and children play in the surf. On Dr Rose’s first filmed visit in late 2023, she arrives with 23 suitcases packed with medical equipment. Returning almost a year later, she’s only allowed one medium-sized piece of luggage, which she fills with children’s clothes, food, and a few essential medical instruments.
We see the erosion of life in Palestine first-hand
Talking into their grainy iPhone cameras, the medics recount disturbing fact after disturbing fact: a ban on sanitary products means civilians are deprived of soap, shampoo and toothpaste; a targeted block on baby formula entering Gaza means that newborns have to be fed on a nutrient-less mixture of sugar and water; a group of teenage boys are all deliberately shot in their testicles by Israeli soldiers when queuing for water.
It’s a hard watch. Many scenes are unbearable. We see hundreds of desperate people holding out containers and crying for food, severely malnourished children, and entire families living on the floor of a half bombed-out hospital. Mercifully, Life Support is only 90 minutes long. Although it’s a slow burn, the destruction of Palestine is relentless. There is no grand crescendo, instead it reveals a steady and terrifying creep towards Gaza’s total devastation.
Life Support wraps up with a strong case for why the mass killing of the Palestinian people should be classed as a genocide, including a grave speech from the UN’s Navi Pillay.
‘Whatever you want to call it, it is not right, and it needs to stop,’ says Dr Rose. It’s not a happy watch, but Life Support is an urgent and essential piece of reportage.
In UK and Ireland cinemas now.