With Hasan in Gaza Review: Raw & Honest

Filmed in Gaza in November 2001, With Hasan in Gaza is a powerful testament to the history of Palestine and its people.

At the beginning of the film, the director is looking for a friend he had met in prison many years before. He goes to Gaza to find him, without a plan or even an address, but as he searches for the man he once knew, he finds a raw and unfiltered version of Gaza during the Second Intifada. 

With Hasan in Gaza starts with music over a black screen, followed by a woman’s voice that introduces the audience to the documentary’s subject: Gaza, its people, and the suffering that they are and have been subjected to both then and now. “Like the rain of my country in December, our blood falls in abundance,” is the first sentence the audience hears her speak. Before even seeing any footage, the documentary already sets the tone of the entire story, rooted in tragedy and struggle for the very existence of the Palestinian people.

Alijafari travels in a taxi driven by Hasan and so does the audience who joins in on this journey through handheld takes and raw footage of a documentary that will never see the light of day. With Hasan in Gaza is made of unedited scenes that are cut together in no particular order. There might be very little that connects them to one another but for their common setting and the shared goal of painting the picture of a reality that is now gone. The final product might not be what the director had originally envisioned when filming the documentary more than 20 years ago, but it is particularly relevant now in the context of resistance and fight against oppression for the Palestinian people.

The personal dimension is one of the most fascinating elements of With Hasan in Gaza, but I wish the documentary had focused more on this. The use of intertitles to narrate a very personal story for the director, which is indicated by the use of first-person pronouns in all the text in the film, is both original and compelling. However, this is only present at the beginning and at the very end of the movie, thus undermining the impact that the director’s connection to Gaza could have had. The ending intertitles, albeit interesting, are also really long, making us wonder if this part of the narrative could have been portrayed in a different and more effective manner.

Due to the uncut nature of the documentary, the scenes do at times feel too slow as the camera lingers on moments we might not necessarily be interested in. With the footage portraying so many different subjects and realities, With Hasan in Gaza struggles to find its narrative in a myriad of stories. A tighter focus on specific plotlines and a more impactful use of intertitles could have helped the movie find a stronger focus. The use of many different clips with the same visual style can easily feel repetitive, especially in the second half of the film, where viewers become accustomed to its style. 

Overall, With Hasan in Gaza is a striking portrayal of everyday life during the Second Intifada: there is joy in the children’s faces, fear in the footage of the missile strikes, humour in a group of men at a cafe, and hopelessness in the women’s voices, but Alijafari captures all of this in its rawest form. The largely unedited cut is not easy to watch and can admittedly become repetitive, but it is worth it for the unique story it portrays. As the director looks for his lost friend, the audience too joins his journey with Hasan through Gaza. 

With Hasan in Gaza will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October 19, 2025.