GAZA'S CEASEFIRE SUMMER: BBC ANNOUNCES NEW DOCUMENTARY
A new BBC Eye film from the BBC World Service, Gaza’s Ceasefire Summer, explores how people in Gaza are trying to survive amid widespread destruction of the infrastructure they rely on across a summer of Israeli bombardment – despite a ceasefire that has been in place since 10 October 2025.
The film follows families and healthcare workers as they navigate shortages of essential supplies and services in Gaza including a scarcity of medicines, leading to avoidable suffering and untreated injuries.
In hospitals, doctors and nurses work to treat patients, including children recovering from serious injuries, despite major shortages of medicines and medical equipment.
Six-year-old Raseel al-Balawi has had more than twenty operations to physically clean the wounds following what witnesses say was an Israeli airstrike by a helicopter on her tent in Al-Mawassi camp. The attack killed her nine-year-old sister, Rateel and now the antibiotics they have access to in Gaza are not working to heal Raseel.
A new decade-long study by researchers in Gaza, shared with the BBC, indicates that there is "widespread" bacterial resistance to key antibiotics there. Israel’s authorities say they do not place limits on the importation of medicine and that the needs of the population, in terms of water, are being met.
The film explores the breakdown of infrastructure, including damaged sewage systems that have contributed to poor sanitation, with rats and weasels feeding on waste left behind.
Gaza’s Ceasefire Summer also examines the impact on education and the mental health and wellbeing of people in Gaza. With 97% of Gaza’s schools and universities damaged or destroyed, according to UNICEF/ UNWRA, opportunities for learning have been severely disrupted. Recreational and social spaces that were once central to daily life, including playgrounds, sports facilities and cultural venues, have largely disappeared, leaving young people with fewer opportunities to socialise and escape the pressures of daily survival.
Alongside these challenges, the documentary shows how families and communities seek moments of normality whilst navigating the devastating impacts of the war on the mental health of those left behind.
More than 1,421 Palestinians have been killed since the October 2025 ceasefire began according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health
The IDF disputes the ministry’s figures. They told the BBC it, "regrets any harm to civilians, and acts to minimise it to the greatest extent possible.”
Watch the English language version of Gaza’s Ceasefire Summer on BBC iPlayer and the BBC World Service YouTube channel.
