Daniel Nelson
“To be a journalist in Gaza is to be at the heart of hell,” says one of Agence France-Presse’s team of Palestinian journalists who produced on-the-spot reports throughout the onslaught that followed the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
“We’re in a cattle pen,” says another in Inside Gaza, the first documentary about the lives of journalists in the retaliatory war, “where the butcher comes every day to chase his victim.”
The AFP team risked and in some cases gave their lives to maintain their coverage of the conflict, in which 190 journalists and many members of their families were killed: “No place in the world has ever been deadlier for journalists,” the film points out.
“In a conflict, no belligerent likes the presence of journalists,” says one, “because they denounce their crimes. Those who target journalists do so deliberately, to hold the truth from the world.”
The documentary is a tribute to the bravery and skill of the journalists who kept the world informed despite Israel’s ban on journalists entering the enclave. The focus is on four AFP staff reporters: Mai Yaghi, Adel Zaanun, Mohammed Abed and Mahmud Hams.
“When the Israelis targeted the AFP office,” Yaghi has said. “It was like a sign for us… Me and all of my AFP colleagues, all of our houses were bombed and destroyed. Every time I stepped out for a mission to cover a strike or to do a story, I would think that I might not come back. I was very much prepared to be killed. In this war, there was a complete closure of the borders. No one was allowed to go out or in. There was no escape.”
Another journalist emphasises that “in Gaza we are talking about Apocalypse,” an assessment backed up by the photographs and films shown in the film: “The war has shown that the world has lost its moral compass.”
Their testimony is vivid and shocking, covering the rockets and bombs, tanks and grenades, fighter jets and tractors that reduced Gaza to rubble, the deaths and injuries, particularly to children, the hunger and desperation of forced migration, the destruction of all possessions, the fear, anger and hopelessness, the rubble, the choking dust and smoke, the shrouds - so many shrouds, the shattered bodies: “I’d like to close my eyes and no longer see them. They’ve worn me out.”
The film also covers the AFP journalists evacuation from Gaza and introduction to exile, often with feelings of remorse: “We work for AFP. We wouldn’t have accepted this from Israel.”
The freelance journalists who have been unable to leave continue to work for AFP in harsh conditions. Heroes every one.
Director Hélène Lam Trong describes the four AFP reporters’ experience as “both deeply personal and universally resonant. They could have chosen survival over journalism, yet they continued to report despite immense danger. At a time when disinformation flourishes and journalism is under attack, Inside Gaza is a tribute to the courage of independent reporters and a reminder that press freedom is one of democracy's most fragile and essential pillars.
“The film is also a tribute to field journalism itself, and especially to photojournalism. In an age when images of war are consumed in an endless scroll, seen just for a fraction of a second before disappearing beneath the next headline, photography remains an act of witness. A photograph has the power to grab our gaze, to preserve a moment from oblivion, and to restore the human presence behind the flood of information. These images tell us not simply to see, but to look.”
Inside Gaza will be showing at the London Palestine Film Festival on 2 November, 7.30pm, Cine Lumiere, followed by a Q&A with producer Yann Ollivier, Mai Yaghi, and Phil Chetwynd, global news director of Agence France-Presse. General cinema release is planned for early 2027.