Crossed voices: Francesca Albanese and Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah

Gaza. The Israeli army has targeted and killed over 1,000 healthcare workers

FIFDH 2025 (the Geneva, Switzerland) International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights

Since 7 October, the Israeli army has targeted and killed over 1,000 healthcare workers, while launching multiple attacks on medical establishments in Gaza. By depriving the population of healthcare, it is contributing to its annihilation.

Discussion Ghassan Abu Sittah - Reconstructive Surgeon and protagonist of the film

Francesca Albanese - Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied (by videoconference)

Moderators Serge Michel - Journalist, editor-in-chief of Heidi.news and director of Kometa publications

ABOUT "A STATE OF PASSION" Synopsis  

A feature-length documentary film by Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi.  After 43 horrific days working round the clock under constant bombardment in the emergency rooms of Gaza’s Al Shifa and Al Ahli hospitals, British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, emerged to find himself as a face of Palestinian resistance.     With news footage of him pale and shell-shocked reverberating around the world, he spoke of a catalogue of horrors from lacerated bodies, to amputations without anesthetics, orphaned children with no surviving family, and the deliberate targeting of medics and hospital facilities.    

This was Ghassan’s sixth and most horrific Gaza “war”.  Why does he do it?  Where does he find the strength to face it again and again? How does it impact his family? How do they process the risks he takes? The answer lies simply in their shared passion: Palestine, a passion they articulate through their support of his perilous humanitarian work.    

Filmmakers Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi, close friends of the Abu Sittahs, share that same passion.  They were waiting anxiously for Ghassan to emerge from Gaza, following a long and terrifying journey through the night, to meet him in Amman.  

Determined to capture his raw emotions they began filming him the moment he arrived through the door.  Following him to Beirut, Amman, London, Kuwait and Dubai, they and he explore their common State of Passion.