plutocracy

Life Support: doctors in Gaza bear witness to genocide

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Life Support by Daniele Rugo

by Nasim Ahmed  Nasimbythedocks

Daniele Rugo’s documentary turns the testimony of British and international medics who worked in Gaza into a searing record of what is described in the film as Israel’s “genocidal frenzy”.

Hospitals represent life. The killing of people inside them, the doctors in Life Support say, is a line that should never have been crossed. Daniele Rugo’s 93-minute documentary opens with British doctors talking about Gaza, their connection to it, the resilience of the people there and a love of life that even decades of siege has not extinguished, before showing what happened when that line was crossed, again and again, over two years.

The film had its world premiere at Sheffield DocFest on 13 June 2026, where it was nominated for the festival’s Tim Hetherington Award, followed by a Q&A with Rugo and contributors Dr Ana Jeelani and Prof Nick Maynard. A public premiere follows at Curzon Mayfair on 9 July. Most of what is on screen was shot by the doctors themselves, on their phones, in the middle of treating patients. MEMO was given an early preview of Life Support ahead of its public premiere at Curzon.

Rugo’s starting point, as he puts it, was simple: surgeons, physicians and nurses went to Gaza to support their Palestinian colleagues and ended up as “the sole international observers” of a genocide. Foreign media have been barred from entering Gaza throughout the war. The doctors who passed through Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine and similar routes were, for long stretches, among the only outsiders able to see what was happening inside the enclave.

The names will be familiar to anyone who has followed British medics’ accounts since October 2023: Dr Victoria Rose, the London-based reconstructive surgeon who has worked in Gaza since 2016 and has been on four missions since the war began; Prof Nick Maynard, the Oxford gastrointestinal surgeon who helped set up Gaza’s cancer services; and Dr Tanya Haj Hassan, the paediatric intensive care doctor and one of the few international witnesses to reach the north of the Strip. Dr James Smith, Dr Deborah Harrington, Dr Khaled Dawas and Dr Ana Jeelani also appear.

Their testimonies, painfully delivered, are as heart-wrenching as they are inspirational.  Rose recalls using her own initiative to take essential medical kit into Gaza in 23 suitcases. Jeelani describes operating without electricity or proper instruments, on wounded children who often needed repeated surgery. Maynard, who has worked in other war zones, says the scale of destruction in Gaza was on a different level.

Outside the hospitals hours of unseen footages filmed a dystopian landscape of buildings razed as far as the eye can see, alongside the daily life that somehow continues around it. This footage is vital because the film is not only about the wounded, the starving and the dead, but about the destruction of the institutions that make human life possible: hospitals, schools, religious buildings and the civic centres that sustain a people, a culture and a civilisation.

What the doctors describe is not only the bombing of buildings, but the destruction of the conditions that allow human existence to continue. This gives the film its wider charge: it is not only a record of war, but of what the doctors repeatedly understand as genocide.

“This is a war on civilians,” Haj Hassan says, describing wards filled with children and elderly women. The cases the doctors treat reflect Gaza’s population under siege: children, women, the elderly and the displaced. They speak of Palestinian medics operating after being told their own relatives had been killed, and of health workers fainting from hunger and exhaustion mid-shift. The footage from inside Al-Shifa hospital after Israel’s withdrawal, including the mass graves hospital staff were left to exhume themselves, is among the hardest material in the film to sit through.

The film also addresses one of the central justifications used by Israel for its attacks on Gaza’s hospitals: the claim that they were being used by Hamas. The doctors answer this directly. Despite hearing the allegation repeated by Israeli officials and echoed by Western governments, they say they saw no evidence to support it. For them, the destruction of Gaza’s hospitals cannot be explained away as a military necessity. It is part of a wider assault on everything that sustains life.

READ: Israeli Supreme Court rejects appeal against Palestinian doctor’s detention, lawyer says

That is where the film’s argument about genocide becomes unavoidable. Maynard says he did not use the word lightly and initially resisted it. But after what he witnessed in Gaza, he reached a different conclusion. The film follows that moral and intellectual shift carefully, showing how doctors who entered Gaza to provide medical care came out asking how such devastation had been allowed to continue.

The documentary then widens the lens, turning to genocide scholars to explain the role of dehumanisation. They describe it as a common feature of genocides, from Rwanda onwards: a process by which a people are stripped of their humanity before violence against them is normalised. In Gaza, the film suggests, that process has been visible not only in language, but in the targeting of the very environment needed for human life to continue. As one contributor puts it, Palestinians have been dehumanised “in a way that we’ve not seen anywhere else in modern times.”

The doctors do not leave Gaza as they entered it. They arrive to treat the wounded and support Palestinian colleagues, but what they see makes it impossible for them simply to return home and move on. “You cannot witness what is happening in Gaza and not emerge enraged and determined to stop it,” one doctor says. That sense of responsibility runs through the film: having seen what they have seen, the doctors know that silence is no longer possible.

The film also shows how Israel’s policy of starvation became another weapon deployed against Palestinians. We see what that meant for Gaza’s children, and for the parents and doctors trying desperately to keep them alive with almost nothing. The documentary links this suffering to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose aid distribution system turned the search for food into a life-and-death situation for Palestinians.

Yet Life Support is not only a film about suffering. It also shows how Palestinians continue to hold on to their humanity, dignity and will to live amid conditions designed to break them. The doctors help carry Gaza’s story to the outside world, but they are not the centre of it. At the centre are the Palestinian doctors, nurses and medical teams who keep treating patients with almost nothing, relying on courage, skill and sheer determination to keep people alive.

Rugo brings the same concern with memory and violence that shaped his previous film, The Soil and The Sea, which documented mass graves from Lebanon’s civil war. In Life Support, he works with editor Masahiro Hirakubo to hold together material that is often extremely painful to watch without losing sight of the people at the heart of the film: the doctors, the patients and the Palestinian medical workers trying to keep Gaza alive.

The film’s sound is equally important. Palestinian composer Habib Shehada Hanna is joined by Robert Del Naja and Euan Dickinson of Massive Attack, giving the documentary a soundtrack that deepens its emotional force. The film’s executive producers include Hollywood star Susan Sarandon, Melissa Barrera, Farah Nabulsi and Asif Kapadia. Ken Loach has called the film “compulsory viewing.”

He is right. Life Support does not try to make its subject easier to watch, and it should not. What it leaves you with is a record of who kept Gaza’s hospitals running, what it cost them, and how much of it the world chose not to see.

READ: Gaza doctors were building a health system – then came the war

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.

Continue ReadingLife Support: doctors in Gaza bear witness to genocide

Meanwhile, In the Real World

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https://rogerhallam.com/meanwhile-in-the-real-world

A week of heatwaves that were entirely predictable

Heatwave in France June 2026
Heatwave in France June 2026

The UK is about to go over 35C for three days in a row. We are at a global warming increase of 1.5C, and temperatures are now rising by 0.4C a decade, meaning we will be hitting 2C in ten years. Meaning the UK’s wiring, roads, railway lines and housing will be melting, subsiding and heading underwater.

…

And yes, to round it off, Starmer sat back and allowed judges to give years-long sentences to the most courageous members of the younger generation — people who took proportionate peaceful action to force reality onto the agenda, and who are going to have to spend their whole lives dealing with this shit.

At the very minimum, to make any real difference, the UK has to get to zero emissions by 2035. Pretending otherwise is the purest of pure bullshit.

Entirely predictable

When the Nazis saw thousands of tanks coming over the horizon in 1944, they thought it was “nothing short of astonishing.”

Since then, everyone else has thought it was entirely predictable.

There’s a real world out there. It was coming to kill Nazis in the past. It is coming to kill our children in the very near future.

https://rogerhallam.com/meanwhile-in-the-real-world

RogerHallam.com

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Continue ReadingMeanwhile, In the Real World

How Secret Pro-Israel Money Flooded the Labour Party and Ended with a Ban of Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur

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https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/hasan-piker-cenk-uygur-uk-ban-keir-starmer-labour-together

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits STARK, a defense tech company on June 5, 2026 in Swindon, England. Photo by Alastair Grant – WPA Pool / Getty Images.

Story by Paul Holden

… Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government is not really a Labour government; it came to power on the back of a secret project to wrest control of the Labour Party back from an ascendant left wing. This secret project was resourced by illegally undeclared money from wealthy donors, funneled through a seemingly anodyne think tank called Labour Together. It involved covertly seeding promiscuous claims of antisemitism against political opponents, attempting to silence independent media that threatened to expose its project, and—ultimately—developing the dishonest leadership pitch that allowed Keir Starmer to trick a left-wing membership to elect him leader.

Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary responsible for the ban on Piker and Uygur, was one of a ‘brave band’ of eight MPs that guided the Labour Together project during the leadership of Starmer’s left-wing predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.

The MP who has most loudly demanded Piker and Uygur’s banning is David Taylor. Elected in 2024 as part of the Labour’s landslide, Taylor was closely vetted and approved by a Labour Party bureaucracy reporting directly to Labour Together’s long-time former managing director. And the single largest donor to Taylor’s election campaign was Labour Together.

Piker and Uygur were not banned by the Labour Party—they were banned by the Labour Together party. The primary architect of the Labour Together project is Morgan McSweeney, who was, until recently, Starmer’s chief of staff and widely understood as the real force running the government. McSweeney resigned in February after it was revealed he had pushed Peter Mandelsohn as the UK’s ambassador to the U.S., despite knowing of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

I know McSweeney’s capacity for destroying free speech—and especially criticism of Israel—first-hand. I have been investigating the Labour Together Project since 2021, setting out my findings in my book, “The Fraud.” As a result, I was one of multiple journalists targeted by Labour Together. I was reported by Labour Together to the UK’s cybersecurity agency, in an apparent attempt to catalyze criminal investigations into me and my colleagues.

…

Part of a long article at https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/hasan-piker-cenk-uygur-uk-ban-keir-starmer-labour-together. It’s very informative if you’re not yet familiar with Labour Together.

Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Continue ReadingHow Secret Pro-Israel Money Flooded the Labour Party and Ended with a Ban of Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur

Sultana says ‘good riddance’ to Starmer

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/sultana-says-good-riddance-starmer

Your Party MP Zarah Sultana speaks at a demonstration organised by CND, Stop the War, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Muslim Association of Britain, Palestinian Forum in Britain and Friends of Al-Aqsa, in London to call for an end to Iran war, March 2026

YOUR Party MP Zarah Sultana said “good riddance” to the departing Keir Starmer today.

The Coventry South MP, suspended from Labour by Sir Keir for challenging the two-child benefit cap, said that “history will judge Keir Starmer as a man who lied his way to the top of the Labour Party.”

She accused him of using that power to evoke Enoch Powell with his “island of strangers” speech, keeping children in poverty, attacking disabled people, scapegoating refugees, stripping back civil liberties, and handing our public services to Palantir.

“A man who gave the top diplomatic job to the ‘best pal’ of a convicted paedophile, said Israel has the right to cut off water and electricity to Gaza, rolled out the red carpet for Israeli war criminals, and kept the weapons flowing to the Israeli military as it committed genocide. Good riddance,” she added.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski called for “a bold change of direction” after Sir Keir’s departure.

He said: “Starmer lost the confidence of the country because of his abject failure to challenge the power and wealth of an Establishment which has taken for themselves while leaving the vast majority in a cost-of-living crisis.

“We are still waiting to see which version of Andy Burnham is going to show up in Downing Street. While he has talked about a change of course, the early indications are not encouraging and suggest more of the same with better communication skills.

“The time for half measures and sticking plasters is long gone — Burnham must be bold or he will be bust.”

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/sultana-says-good-riddance-starmer

I hope that the Morning Star will excuse me republishing the full article.

Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves - the very poorest and most vulnerable.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.
Continue ReadingSultana says ‘good riddance’ to Starmer