What this documentary might lack in film-making finesse it makes up for with sheer visceral and emotional impact. British nerve surgeon Mohammad Tahir and his colleagues, who also work the cameras, toil in Gaza’s barely operational hospitals during some of the worst days and nights of the war in the winter of 2024-25. Supported by US-based charity FAJR Global, who provide medical care to the world’s most in need, Tahir operates through bombings and blackouts with a bare minimum of medical supplies, sometimes treating patients lying on the floor in puddles of blood because there are no gurneys. This is often hard to watch, and not just because of all the gore; many of the victims are children, out of whom Tahir and the others dig bullets as well as tiny tungsten cubes, new-fangled shrapnel designed to cause maximum damage.
With his matinee-star good looks, rock-steady composure and air of unruffled competence, Tahir makes an excellent guide to all this mayhem. For the most part he soldiers stoically on, but the cool melts when, for instance, he discusses how he had to remove a random jawbone embedded in a patient’s wound. Later on, he treats a little girl who has lost an arm in a bombing; he manages to reattach it after the family find the severed limb in the rubble of their home. The film could have easily started to feel like a numbing, endless procession of tragedy and bloodshed but the film-makers wisely offer a few moments of respite, such as a sequence where Tahir and his fellow medics enjoy a day out at the beach. Likewise, a scene where he teases a medical student bent over her textbooks briefly lightens the load of gloom.
The final section, shot just after the ceasefire announcement, offers footage of a miles-long procession of refugees marching home, a portrait of human endurance that’s impossible to shake. There’s almost no discussion of politics here, at least no explicit mention of what has caused this disaster, but the images speak eloquently on their own, impactful in a way that regular news reportage cannot match.
The Mission is on digital platforms now.
