Echoes of a Lost Gaza – Episode 1: Faded Hopes

Documentary director Mariam Shahin has been making films about Gaza for over thirty years. She produced a documentary for Al Jazeera English in 2009 which told the stories of six sets of Gazans she’d followed for four years. When she moved to Gaza in 2005 she felt a powerful sense of optimism following the Israeli withdrawal. But by 2009, war had badly damaged its infrastructure, neighbourhoods, businesses and communities – and that optimism had evaporated.

In the wake of the war in 2023, Mariam looks back at these stories and reflects on the wasted potential, lost hope and devastated lives after sixteen years of blockade, poverty and conflict.