Zakaria is 11 years old and lives in the Gaza Strip. Since the outbreak of the war, he claims to have witnessed thousands of bodies. However, at this age when he should be learning in the classroom, Zakaria volunteers at Al-Aqsa Hospital, one of the few hospitals still operating in Gaza.
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03-04, 2025As ambulance after ambulance screeches to a halt, carrying victims of the Israel-Hamas war, Zakaria weaves through the crowded scene, responsible for quickly getting newly arrived patients into the hospital for treatment. Moments later, he is running through the hospital corridors, pushing stretchers or carrying young children to the emergency room. Several of his classmates have tragically died since the conflict began, and staying in the hospital means Zakaria has to witness shocking scenes firsthand. He said that once, after an Israeli attack, he saw a boy burn to death in front of him in the fire.
"I've definitely seen at least 5,000 bodies. I saw it with my own eyes," he told our photographer. Zakaria is one of the children we followed for nine months for the BBC documentary "Gaza: How to Survive in a War Zone." The documentary was co-directed by my colleague Yousef Hamash and me, and we produced it remotely in London because Israel has not allowed international journalists into the Gaza Strip for independent reporting since the war began 16 months ago. To collect footage and interviews, we hired two photographers living in Gaza—Amjad Al-Fayoumi and Ibrahim Abu Ishaiba—and communicated with them regularly via text messaging apps, internet calls, and mobile phone networks.
Yousef and I wanted to make this documentary to show what daily life is like for the people of Gaza as they try to survive the horrors of this conflict. We completed filming a few weeks ago, on the day the current ceasefire agreement came into effect. We focused on three children and a young woman who had just given birth, as they are the innocent victims of this war. The war was temporarily halted on January 19, when Hamas and Israel reached an agreement to release hostages. According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, more than 48,200 people have been killed in Gaza during the Israeli offensive. The military operation was triggered by Hamas's attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and took 251 people hostage.
Overall, we filmed in the southern and central areas of Gaza designated by the Israeli military as "humanitarian zones," where Palestinians were told to go for their own safety. Nevertheless, according to BBC Verify analysis, the area itself suffered nearly 100 attacks from May 2024 to January this year. The Israel Defense Forces said they were targeting Hamas militants operating there. Renad said she was consumed with thoughts of the war and "how we can survive each day." We wanted to know how the children found food, how they decided where to sleep, and how they spent their time while trying to survive. Abdullah, 13, provided the voiceover for the film. He attended a British school in Gaza before the war, speaks excellent English, and is doing everything he can to continue his education. Renad, 10, with the help of her sister, does cooking shows on TikTok. Even though the war means they can't get the right ingredients, they make all kinds of dishes and have over a million fans. We also followed 24-year-old Lana, who gave birth to a premature baby girl. She has been displaced three times and lives near the hospital with her two sons and her parents.
Part of the film also focuses on how medical staff at Al-Aqsa Hospital are struggling to save lives. British doctors described the hospital in January 2024 as the only functioning hospital in central Gaza. That's where we found Zakaria. Everyone who works at the hospital knows the boy. Of course, he is still a child, not a qualified medical professional, but he is always wandering around, waiting for an opportunity to help others, hoping to get some food or money in return. Sometimes he helps local journalists carry equipment, and sometimes he helps carry stretchers with injured or dying people. When there is a quiet moment, he helps clean blood and dirt from ambulances. He has no school to go to, and he is the only breadwinner in his family. He said he doesn't live with his family because they have very little food or water, but lives alone in the hospital, sleeping wherever he can. Sometimes in the CT scan room, sometimes in the journalists' tent, sometimes in the back of an ambulance. There were many nights when he went to bed hungry.
Despite the best efforts of the hospital staff, they could not stop him from approaching the chaotic scenes of caring for the wounded. Zakaria idolizes the medical staff and wants to be seen as part of the team. One of the medical staff, Saeed, took him under his wing. He said that whenever he treated Zakaria like a child, the boy would get frustrated. Other staff saw Zakaria's care and attention to them and the hospital patients and taught him how to give others IV drips. In recognition of his efforts, they even made him a mini version of the blue scrubs - which he was very proud of. Saeed tries to make sure the boy still has a childhood, and in the film, we followed them to the beach. Zakaria sat in the shade of a tree branch, enjoying the lunch Saeed bought him. He said the shawarma was perfect. Saeed joked that this was the only time the boy "shut up." But Saeed worries that Zakaria has witnessed too much death and destruction and may never be able to fit in with children his age again.
Zakaria himself is also looking beyond childhood. "I want to be a paramedic," he said. "But first I need to get out of here."
