Gaza – A Story of Love and War (2026 edition)

Frome Friends of Palestine’s next event is the film “Gaza: A Story of Love and War”. It describes how, in 2023, two journalists, Mike and Sami, meet to share stories over a Zoom link. Mike Joseph is Welsh-Jewish and can’t enter Gaza; Sami Abu Salem is Palestinian and can’t escape. As they talk, an intimate history is revealed. We learn of remarkable connections in their stories. Mike’s uncle was in the militia that drove Sami’s mother from her Palestinian village as a young girl. In Sami’s narrative of her refugee life in Gaza, Mike hears echoes of his own mother’s Holocaust dislocation and loss.
In the 2026 updated version of this unusually personal film which was first released in 2024, Sami connects the great and small by showing what violating the UN Genocide Convention means to a family, a people, a mother. He tells of the ongoing catastrophe his family are enduring after 1000 days of siege and genocide, of being deprived of water, food, fuel, medicine, of repeatedly fleeing bombing. He movingly documents the despair when, even after the supposed 2025 ceasefire, lives, dignity and hope are being systematically destroyed.
Director Mike Joseph will introduce the screening at Frome Town Hall on Friday 30th October at 7pm (doors at 6.30pm) and afterwards will lead a conversation and joint Q&A with Anna Sabine, MP for Frome and East Somerset. Anna has recently visited Israel/Palestine.