The documentary is also available in a book and was submitted to officials globally and the International Court of Justice to support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.
Qatar’s foreign ministry and Qatar Museums held a screening of Anadolu Agency’s (AA) documentary “The Evidence”, which documented Israel’s ongoing war crimes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Held at the National Museum of Qatar, the screening on Tuesday saw the attendance of ambassadors and officials, including Qatar’s Minister of State for International Cooperation Lolwah Al Khater.
Ibrahim Al Hashmi, the director of the Qatari Foreign Ministry’s Media and Communications Department, delivered the opening remarks at the screening. He reiterated calls for holding Israel accountable and expressed Doha’s steadfast support for the Palestinian cause.
The film featured photos and footage from the Gaza Strip as well as interviews with global rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Some of the footage included evidence of Israel’s unlawful use of white phosphorus on civilians in the blockaded territory.
Late last year, AA also published the documentary as a book, which was submitted to global officials and the International Court of Justice to support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.
The film’s director, Abdelkader Karakel, told Doha News that the most challenging aspect of creating the film was the constant exposure to footage from the Gaza Strip, while noting that the world has grown desensitised to such distressing scenes.
“We cannot feel that empathy because we have been exposed so many times to footage like this and I personally also avoided seeing this footage for a month[…]and I have two kids and I watched babies dying and crying, [and] moms looking for the babies,” he said.
According to Karakel, the documentary was a collective effort by about 30 people who had worked to bring the footage from the Gaza Strip.
Mohammed Abdul Aleem, the CEO of Human Assistance and Development International, discussed the film’s distribution strategy to ensure it reaches powerful figures globally to continue to expose Israel’s crimes.
“We wanted to make sure that we can build elements around the documentary where people are not just watching the documentary, we’re taking action,” he told Doha News.
Abul Aleem’s entity targeted universities and communities across the United States, where mass protests, especially at Ivy League campuses, have been taking place against the Biden administration’s active backing and participation of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.
“We are doing a 30-city tour, a film tour and an experiential tour that would include augmented reality, virtual reality elements that we’re building around the movie so that when people are exposed to what they would look like if they were exposed to white phosphorus, they would have more empathy,” he explained.
The death toll in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday has surpassed 41,000, although the figure is feared to be much higher with thousands of bodies believed to be still trapped under the rubble and unaccounted for.
The Israeli war on the Strip has also targeted journalists covering the daily atrocities committed by Israel for more than 11 months. Since October 7, Israel has killed at least 170 journalists in the Gaza Strip.
Citizen journalists on the ground have also continued to expose Israel’s crimes, resulting in raising global awareness over the occupation of Palestine, particularly in the West where the Israeli narrative has been more dominant.
Karakel stressed the importance of continuing to push out content similar to his documentary, The Evidence, to keep the conversation going and display to the world the crimes being committed against Palestinians.
“The only thing that we can do is just produce more and more and more to change people’s minds,” he said. “We have to create a spectrum where every audience should find what they are interested in regarding this topic.”
