“Oh my God, the key to my grandfather’s house!” 10-year-old Najwa exclaims, her voice lighting up with excitement as she squeezes the key in her tiny hand. Standing on top of a pile of rubble where her grandparents’ house once stood, she adds: “Now everything is destroyed. »
Six months after Close Up first met Najwa in Rafah, the so-called “safe zone” in southern Gaza where 1.5 million Palestinians had taken refuge from relentless Israeli bombardment, our team found at her home in Khan Younis. Since Israel began its retaliatory war on October 7, 2023, almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been forced to evacuate more than once. Najwa and her family have been displaced from their homes more than five times.
“When I arrived in Khan Younis, I was afraid that we could be part of this destruction,” she recalls, reflecting on her return from Rafah just before the Israeli ground invasion in May 2024. Unlike the most of the houses that were in ruins, his house was in ruins. spared the worst. “Thank God we were not affected, we did not die in this devastation,” she adds.
In this film Close Up, Najwa takes us on a journey through the places of her city: her house, her grandmother’s neighborhood and her school. Each place, a reminder of the life she once knew, now devastated by war. His greatest wish is for the war to end and life to return to normal. Najwa’s story, The Girl Who Lived, highlights the effect of conflict on children and the strength of family bonds amid devastation. Even in the destruction, his memories of the places in Gaza endure, reflecting his resilience in the face of adversity.
Credits:
Producers: Ruwaida Amer, Antonia Perello
Director of photography: Real Gaza Productions
Editor: Antonia Perello
Screenwriters: Tierney Bonini, Donald Cameron
Sound mixer: Yago Cordero
Executive producer: Tierney Bonini
Editor-in-chief: Donald Cameron
