BBC Documentaries

A people’s history of Gaza

Loading player...
The back-story of Gaza, from the 1940s to the 2010s, told through the personal experiences of a wide variety of ordinary people - a teacher, a smuggler, a bird-watcher, musicians, doctors and others. Tim Whewell finds out how the tiny territory was created, how it first filled with refugees, how people lived, worked and died, how they survived invasions, wars and blockade, how hopes for peace rose and fell - under the rule of Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas. How did refugees arrive in Gaza in 1948? Why is the Strip so important to Palestinian identity - and the wider Palestinian-Israeli conflict? How did living conditions gradually improve? How did the 1967 Six Day War change people's lives? Why did the two intifadas of 1987 and 2000 break out? When were the best times for Gazans in recent history? What changed for them after Hamas took control in 2007? Tim asks these and many other questions in this journey through the recent history of a sliver of land that has often dominated world news.
18 Oct 8PM English United Kingdom Education

Other recent episodes

Carl Brandon Strehlke: My search for the 15th Century artist Beato Angelico

Art historian Carl Brandon Stehlke is a world expert on the great 15th Century Florentine painter Fra Angelico, and this is his dream project: a historic, once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of the artist's work at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco in Florence. The show brings together more…
19 Oct 8PM 29 min

Reporting the impact of  the Gaza ceasefire

Following the ceasefire in Gaza, this week has seen the release of hostages and prisoners on both sides and the beginning of the return of the remains of some of the deceased. Over the past two years, The Fifth Floor has been speaking to language service colleagues reporting on the…
18 Oct 8AM 28 min

Families in Israel and Gaza share their stories

After two years and two days of war in Gaza, Israel and Hamas have agreed the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire. In our conversations, families in Israel and Gaza share their experiences of the conflict and their lives today. With the remaining 20 surviving Israeli hostages seized by Hamas…
17 Oct 8PM 26 min

Mamdani New York

Zohran Mamdani catapulted on to New York’s political scene this summer when he captured the Democratic nomination to run for Mayor this fall. A young politician, Mamdani campaigned on issues that mattered to New Yorkers including lowering the cost of living, but unlike other candidates, was not shy about making…
16 Oct 8PM 29 min

Fighting on two fronts

More than a third of Ukraine’s scientific institutions have been damaged or destroyed by Russian bombing. Many scientists have either fled the country or are internally displaced, and that Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences is trying to operate on half its pre-war budget. The funding may be reduced but the…
15 Oct 8PM 30 min
All episodes