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Avsar is a small village in south-western Turkey which, like many rural communities around the world, is gradually losing its livelihood, its population and much of its hope for the future. It has depended on cotton farming for centuries, but times have changed. Turkey's agriculture used to be the biggest contributor to the country's economy and in the 1920s, farm labourers formed three-quarters of the workforce, but now they are under a quarter. Industrialisation and urbanisation occurred later in Turkey than in Western Europe but had a major impact on farming communities starting in the 1950s. The cost of growing cotton has increased and made it hard for Avsar's working poor to make ends meet. Many villagers have abandoned farming and left for the city, so the population has dropped from 2,000 to 650 in the past 40 years - most of whom are elderly adults. For grocery store owner Ali Kose, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep his shop open. Hundreds of customers used to frequent his shop, but "now it's dropped to only 150 and there are fewer every day," he says. "Young people go to [the town of] Soke all the time. The unemployed also leave to look for jobs, and parents go with their kids who study at city schools. This village can last another six or seven years. I know I also have to move. There'll be no reason for me to stay here," says Kose. The problem for cotton farmers is that the price of cotton has steadily fallen over time, while production costs have increased. Between 2000 and 2015, the price of diesel has increased by almost 40 percent. And while the government provides diesel subsidies for farmers depending on the crop they cultivate, it is still not enough. Farmer Medine Goger says: "When this tractor goes back and forth 40 times it uses $600 of fuel .... You spend $1,700 of your profit on fuel. If you sell the cotton for 30 cents a kilo, it spells 'suicide' for the farmer." Village mechanic Halil Kanyis tries to help out the farmers as much as he can, but businesses like his are also on the decline. When farmers can't afford a wheel change for a puncture, "we patch it instead. They try to make do with it, so our business suffers too. But we can't hold on for long if it goes on like this," he says. Turkish commentator Murat Guvenc of Istanbul Sehir University believes that rural spaces in Europe will ultimately be economically and socially unsustainable, and that Turkey's village communities will continue to empty, but in some regions small settlements will continue labour-intensive farming in family businesses. "Gradually, our population will shrink even more through migration, deaths and lower birth rates. I think we'll be the last remaining villagers of Turkey," says Medine Goger. The Last Villagers of Avsar is a snapshot of life in rural Turkey, which also reflects the continuing decline in rural communities worldwide. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

Episode two of Thank You, Football features the French-born Moroccan, Youssef El-Arabi, who also played for Granada, quickly acquiring legendary status at the Spanish club. He now plays for Lekhwiya in the Qatar Stars League. When the Omani Ali Al Habsi was first spotted by European scouts, he was working as a fireman at Muscat airport; but as goalkeeper at both Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic he’s become one of the best-loved Arab players in the UK. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

The stories of four African and Arab footballers all of whose lives have been transformed by playing for some of the best-known clubs in the world. This two-part series paints intimate and affectionate portraits of Yaya Touré, Yacine Brahimi, Youssef El-Arabi and Ali Al Habsi through the eyes of their families, friends, coaches, journalists, agents and fans. Episode One features the Côte d’Ivoire and Manchester City midfielder Yaya Touré and Algerian striker Yacine Brahimi, now playing for FC Porto. Touré was part of the Barcelona side that won six trophies in 2009. He scored for Manchester City in the 2011 FA Cup Final and helped them to their first league title in 44 years. "Yaya Toure is the catalyst, if you like, right in the centre of the team ... Yaya was THE one that put Manchester City on the map," says BBC Radio Manchester's Ian Cheeseman. The Côte d’Ivoire captain was appointed a UN Goodwill Ambassador in 2013, joining their campaign against poaching. Yacine Brahimi starred for Algeria at the 2014 World Cup, helping them to reach the last 16. When he left French club Rennes, he found himself playing for Granada against Barcelona at the Nou Camp the following week and couldn’t believe it. YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

The ongoing civil war has caused serious damage to Somalia's infrastructure and economy. Thousands of Somalis have either left as economic migrants or fled as refugees. Most spent months, if not years, in refugee camps aboard. Around 200,000 Somalis refugees have fled to Yemen and roughly 50,000 to the UAE. There are around 150,000 Somalis living in Canada, 100,000 in the UK and 85,000 in the US. Within Somali, more than a million people are internally displaced. "There are more than 1.1 million people displaced from their homes and their original places of living. 1.1 million people. There's certainly nearly that same number who are reliant upon food assistance from the United Nations agency and other donors, nearly a million people who can't meet their own food needs," says Nicholas Kay, United Nations special representative for Somalia. Somalia receives aid from both the UN and the Arab League - of which it is a member - how it's allocated and where it goes can sometimes appear inconsistent. Many Somalis have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, hoping to return to Somalia once the civil war dies down. Ethiopia has become home to 4.6 million Somalis and Kenya to over 2 million. After a series of Al-Shabaab attacks in Kenya starting in 2011, the Kenyan government began ordering Somalis back into refugee camps and some to return to Somalia. Other Somalis have even fled to war-torn Libya, a hub for human traffickers who export them to the full. From there, they must make the often treacherous sea journey to Europe and then by land to onward destinations. Those who survive can encounter a wide range of problems - but sometimes find help from established Somali communities. With the collapse of government, Somalis have often turned to their tribes, clans and sub-clans to fill the void, and clan allegiances can extend beyond Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya into the diaspora. "The clan is a wonderful form of insurance," says the BBC's Africa Editor, Mary Harper. "Because if I arrive in London and I'm from a particular Somali clan, I'll find my Somali clan brothers and sisters and they'll look after me. If I don’t have any money, they'll give me money to maybe start a business and maybe I’ll pay it back. If I don’t have anywhere to live, they'll help me find somewhere to live. So they really, really look after each other." "The Somali community in the UK has been in existence long before the state collapsed," says Laura Hammond, Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. "As a community the Somali community is suffering quite a lot from a lack of integration which is caused not just by their own difficulties, learning the language or figuring out so-called British life. But it’s also about structural exclusions that are put in place. So it’s very difficult for them to find jobs, it's very difficult for them to solve their immigration status. It can take them years to actually gain citizenship." Abdi Warsame and Abdirizak Bihi are part of the Somali community in Minneapolis in Minnesota state in the US. Warsame has become an elected member of Minneapolis City Council and has worked hard to ensure that his people are properly and evenly represented at the municipal level. Bihi runs the Somali Education Advocacy Center: "In 1996 I moved here from Washington DC to work with the refugees I’ve seen in camps. So I knew the challenges they’ll face here. I became an interpreter, a counselor, a cultural broker. We’d train them to or help get Somali speaking personnel so they could address the issues that the new Americans were facing. And it’s not really easy to be black, Muslim and immigrant." When Aboukar Awale came to the UK in 1997, he found mafrishes, cafes where Somali men would drink tea and chew the addictive stimulant khat. He himself became an addict - but the drug is now banned in the UK, thanks to the campaign spearheaded by Awale. However, it's still a big problem among young Somalis and so he's now taken his campaign to the streets of Somalia itself: "I thought if I am lucky, then what about the children of Somalia, and those being raised who think khat is a good thing? And that's how I started this campaign." Like many Somalis across the diaspora, Awale hopes deeply that one day he’ll be able to return to help re-build his homeland: "It will happen inshallah. It might not happen in ten years; it might not happen in maybe 20 years. But one day… It just breaks my heart. But inshallah, Somalia will come back. Someday Somalia will be back." More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

After years of lobbying by animal rights campaigners, in July 2011 the Catalan Parliament voted by a small majority to ban bullfighting. The Catalonia region of north-east Spain banned bullfighting as a spectator sport with effect from January 1, 2012. In the evening of September 25, 2011, 20,000 spectators from Spain and around the world were packed into Barcelona's Monumental Bullring for the last bullfight in the Spanish region. But the debate for and against is still very much alive. In September 2016, there were demonstrations in Madrid after a matador was killed by a bull, sparking calls for a Spanish nationwide ban. Meanwhile in October, bullfighting supporters petitioned Spain's constitutional court to have the ban overturned, arguing the Catalan parliament had powers only to regulate the sport, not ban it. But the court deferred its decision. I think anyone who wants to be a toreador loves the bull more than his girlfriend. Bullfighting is his life. That's what he wants. Luis Cantero, bullfighter trainer The ban polarises Catalan society and provokes strong feelings on both sides. Many are glad it's in place, feeling that bullfighting has no part in Catalan culture. But it has also affected those most closely associated with the sport - the matadors and bull breeders, whose lives depend entirely on the sport and who argue passionately for its survival. They're angry at the loss of their way of life. "The bull is my life and they've taken it away; or at least my life in Barcelona. In terms of bullfighting, I'm dead, dead here in Barcelona," says bullfighter Serafin Marin. They dismiss claims by animal rights campaigners and argue that a handful of votes should not have decided the issue and ended six centuries of Spanish tradition. "You can't prove the animals are tortured ... None of these guys who want to be bullfighters, would harm a beetle ... There's no such thing as torture," says Luis Cantero, a bullfighting trainer. Supporters also emphasise the part bullfighting plays in the Spanish economy. "Bullfighting is the second biggest spectacle in Spain after football. It generates wealth and many jobs. The tax on tickets sales alone generates 50 million euros. Bullfighting creates jobs too. It's one of the driving forces of the Spanish economy," argues bullfighter Fran Vazquez. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the campaigners who lobbied so long for the ban and who used the constitutional process to draft a new law banning the sport. "The polls published by the media show that the majority of Catalan society was in favour of banning bullfighting. The Popular Legislative Initiative channelled all the forces within Catalan society. In fact, if I'm not wrong, we got more than 180,000 signatures when only 50,000 were needed," says Josep Puigdengolas, an animal rights campaigner. Some also see a political dimension to the debate. Catalans can often see themselves as having a separate identity from the rest of Spain. They associate bullfighting with General Franco's long dictatorship in the mid-20th century - and see it as having been foisted on them by central government in Madrid. These feelings of resentment did not pass with the restoration of democracy in the late 1970s and still underlie the tension between Barcelona and the capital. "It's not about animal rights but about politics," says Vazquez. "Catalonia has banned bullfighting because the province, or some Catalan politicians want to separate Catalonia from Spain. What could be more representative of Spain than bullfighting?" But Carlos Lopez Perez, a member of Libera!, a Spanish non-profit animal rights organisation, disagrees. "Entertainment that abuses animals no longer fits the morals of the age. The Catalan parliament took into account what the people wanted and legislated independently. We consider this activity outdated. Regardless of whether it's Spanish or Catalan, society today finds it clearly abusive. Killing an animal is incompatible with modern and civilised Catalan society." So, like the bull, the debate rages on - with some thinking the ban has as much to do with Spanish regional politics and Catalan autonomy as it does with animal rights. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

....Just as the Five were celebrating their apparent acquittal, the judge asked if the prosecution if they would be prepared to bring a second case against the men. They were re-charged and faced a year-long battle against evidence which has since been criticised for being ‘untested, untestable, hearsay and prejudicial’. In the second trial a year later, the men were convicted of providing 'material support' to Hamas and in 2009, were sentenced to between 15 and 65 years in prison. Nevertheless, the Five have lost all their subsequent appeals and their only remaining recourse would be a presidential pardon which has not so far been granted. Watch Part I here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJJkaWVENTg More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

Soon after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, the largest Muslim charity in the United States - the Holy Land Foundation - was shut down, its assets frozen and five of its senior staff arrested by the FBI. The charity was founded in California in 1989 and provided aid to a number of Palestinian causes. It also offered help to refugee communities in Jordan, Lebanon and other needy people across the Middle East and the rest of the world. As the charity grew and revenue increased, claims emerged against the foundation. The 1990s saw groups like the Anti-Defamation League and politicians such as the former Governor of New York City, Eliot Spitzer, and former Congressman Anthony Wiener lobby against the charity. These groups appealed to the Clinton administration to shut the charity down, but failed. The US government eventually responded to similar accusations, allegedly made by the state of Israel. The claims made were that the charity was a front for an illegal money-laundering operation, diverting funds to Hamas via zakat committees in the Occupied West Bank. Hamas, in turn, had been designated "a terrorist organisation" by the US government. "It was a huge record that the government created, an administrative record - and it was basically garbage. It was newspaper articles, interviews that were translated from Arabic to Hebrew to English," says Nancy Hollander, one of the lawyers defending Shukri Abu Baker, a founder of the foundation. "And we discovered when we did our own translations that their translations were completely wrong, that the government was relying on information that was completely false. But it didn't matter." The five foundation founders were charged with providing "material support" to Hamas. During the first trial in 2007, their defence team struggled to deal effectively with two secret expert witnesses called by the prosecution whose "evidence" was not shared in advance. Nonetheless, the jury failed to agree on the charges brought against them and the judge declared a mistrial. "More than 8,000 documents and the United States government didn't have a single American document that condemns the Holy Land Foundation. They might have had circumstantial evidence or doubts, but the only evidence was Israeli. And these documents were forged," says journalist Osama Abu Irshaid. The former US Consul General in Jerusalem also points out that the US Agency for International Development funded the same zakat committees named in the indictment of the foundation and continued to do so for three years after the charity was shut down. The Holy Land Five is a two-part documentary looking at the controversial trial of the Holy Land Foundation leaders. The films use interviews with defence and prosecution lawyers, family members, phone calls with the men themselves in jail - and reconstruction of court proceedings, to examine the case against the five men. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

As the Armenian economy continues to struggle, as do its people. Over a third of the country's population lives under the poverty line and the price of common goods shows no sign of moderation. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians have immigrated to neighbouring and far away countries, and although the border with Turkey has been closed since 1993, many continue to make the short journey over - the proximity from home a draw-factor for those who can't bear to move further away. This film tells the poignant story of two Armenian women unable to survive at home and who leave their families to join the many economic migrants with hopes of a better life for their families. Anahit Donoyan lost thirty family members in an Armenian earthquake, after her husband passed away at a mere 50 years old. When she first moved to Istanbul, manual labour was how she earned her keep. "I worked in a factory and at a restaurant. I cleaned hallways at night. I took care of babies. I would steam corn and sell it by the sea. Then I was a housekeeper. All kinds of work. I'm not ashamed because I was providing for my children," says Donoyan. Now, too old for such physical roles, she ekes out a living selling Armenian food products to other immigrants, not unlike herself, out of a suitcase on the streets of Istanbul. She has lived and worked illegally in Turkey for 18 years, avoided trouble with the authorities and still tries to support her family in Armenia and Russia. "I've been setting up a stall and selling my goods here for five years. No one's ever asked me what I was doing here. Never. Everyone's fond of me and I'm fond of them." Karine Galstyan is also Armenian and came to Turkey looking for work in 2004. After marrying a Turkish man, her residency and work status are a lot more stable, allowing her easier transport in and out of Turkey and Armenia. "It was very difficult for me. I would lie in bed at night and my mind was in Armenia with my children. But, as a mother, I suffered to make sure my children were taken care of," she remembers. Galstyan buys cheap clothes in Istanbul and takes them in a suitcase to sell in Armenia a couple of times a month, earning around $300 [≈ cost of PS3 gaming system, 2011] a trip. Where children's shoes can cost as much as $21 in Armenia, Istanbul affords Galstyan a business opportunity with commodities at a fraction of the price, at as little as $2 per item. In spite of the distance from their families, the intensity at which they work and the routine lives they lead trying to make ends meet, the two women are happy to be able to support the ones they love and support themselves. A feeling that trumps the desire to be at home. "I love Istanbul. People love a place if they have a good life and are making a good living," confirms Galstyan. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

The refugee crisis triggered by the continuing conflict in Syria has reached epic proportions in 2016. The death toll in the Mediterranean has risen steadily in recent years; and according to a UNHCR report, reached the 10,000 mark in the two-and-a-half years up to June 2016 But the numbers succeeding in completing the hazardous sea journey and landing in Italy, largely on the island of Lampedusa, have also continued to increase – and this has challenged Italy's preparedness to accept, process and accommodate them. While the Mediterranean crisis has deepened, the numbers fleeing Syria and taking the land route through Turkey have also mounted. The powerful images of homeless adults and children queuing and camping at the borders of eastern Europe meant the world could no longer ignore the scale of the refugee crisis. This human fall-out was also too much for many of these countries that were simply not prepared - practically or politically – for the nature or numbers of the tens of thousands of displaced people. The way European Union deals with fingerprinting and asylum applications was also seriously challenged. This film follows two Syrian refugees trying to reach Europe – one by sea, the other by land. The film-makers use hidden cameras to observe people-smugglers doing deals with desperate refugees in both Libya and Turkey. Muhannad Ahmed pays them to travel on an overcrowded boat from Zuwara on the Libyan coast to Italy. The small fishing vessel has a capacity of 300 passengers – but on this trip 1,068 refugees were on board, including 193 children. No surprise, then, that it leaked and almost sank in the Mediterranean before being rescued by Italian coastguards. Muhannad secretly films the harrowing journey, aware that his phone may be confiscated if he’s spotted and clear evidence of the blatant exploitation by the people-smugglers lost. Muhannad manages to travel on through Italy, filming as he goes, and then though France to Germany. Exhausted and running out of money, he abandons his plan to get to Sweden and applies, successfully, for asylum in Germany. The films also follows Wa'il Azraq who’s already tried six times to get to Europe by sea and now tries the overland route via Turkey and Bulgaria. But he’s foiled by Bulgarian border police and deported back to Istanbul. "He [the smuggler] said walk and you'll arrive in an hour. We walked two hours and crossed the Bulgarian border. Then we waited in the forest. We'd walk a hundred metres out, then go back and wait longer. The first patrol didn't spot us but the second one did. They took us to the checkpoint and asked where we'd come from and where we were going. They beat a lot of people but they didn't beat us. They took the phone I'd been filming with and sent us back to Turkey," Wa'il recounts. The film-makers continue on the route Wa'il would have taken, through Hungary and Austria, stopping at refugee camps and hostels on the way. Refugees in different stages of their journeys to 'safety' in Europe tell stories of money stolen, border beatings and forced fingerprinting - a process used under Europe’s Dublin Regulation requiring refugees to be fingerprinted in the first country they arrive in. The producers also directly confront people-smugglers in Turkey accused of defrauding refugees of tens of thousands of euros. Shot in 2014 but just as resonant today, the film concludes with updates on Wa'il and Muhannad's journeys. It's visceral in the way it tells the refugee story from the inside - and hard-hitting on the failure of the international community to deal with both the refugee crisis and its root cause in the continuing conflict in Syria. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

Two years on, a graphic and harrowing look behind the scenes at the Shifah Hospital in Gaza during the seven weeks of Israeli attacks in July and August 2014. The Shifah is Gaza's biggest and oldest medical facility and the dead and injured were brought there day and night during almost two months of bombardment by Israeli forces. Thousands also took refuge in and around the hospital while Palestinian medics often put in 30 hour shifts. The conflict in Gaza in the summer of 2014 claimed 2,220 lives, two-thirds of whom were civilians. Over 11,000 more were injured and many of these were treated at the Shifah Hospital. Space, medicines, equipment and beds were all limited, power cuts frequent and the Out Patients department took a direct hit. Here, cameras record the suffering, chaos and distress - and we hear from Norwegian anaesthetist and trauma expert Dr. Mads Gilbert. A frequent visitor to the Shifah until his ban by Israel in November 2014, Gilbert brings desperately-needed supplies - but also joins the Palestinian doctors in the constant, brutal decision-making about which patients should live and who should be left to die.

Three years on from the dramatic attack on Rabaa Field Hospital by Egyptian Special Forces, memories of the day remain as vivid as ever for those who witnessed the events unfold. On August 14th 2013, protest encampments around the hospital were bulldozed and over a thousand protestors killed over the course of ten hours. Human Rights Watch labelled it "one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history" and claimed it was "a violent crackdown planned at the highest levels of the Egyptian government". The Special Forces carried out the attack in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, with armoured personnel carriers, bulldozers, ground troops and snipers. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

Miki Cohen is a 58-year-old college teacher who has 'discovered' the works of Jalal ad-Din Rumi, a 13th-century Muslim poet and Sufi mystic. Attracted by Rumi's writings and philosophy, Miki translates his works into Hebrew and practices whirling in worship. What makes Cohen's story so remarkable is that he is an Israeli. The son of holocaust survivors and a veteran of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Cohen found himself searching for answers to his spiritual identity. "I was in the Israeli army in the '73 war. And the war mentality, the killing mentality, the feeling that we are on one side victims and on the other side we are the oppressors. So, what are we? So I started, you know, looking for bigger answers let's say or deeper .... For many years I was looking in many places," he explains. Along with several other Israelis, he undertakes a spiritual search and is attracted by the mysticism of Sufism. But Miki goes a step further. He travels to Konya in central Turkey, the resting place of Rumi and a city once known as the 'citadel of Islam' with a reputation for religious conservatism. It is the centre for the Mevlevi Sufi order of Islam. Miki becomes one of few outsiders - and certainly the only Israeli - to be granted access to the inner sanctum of the whirling Dervishes. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

Farah is a young girl from Beit Lahia, a city located in the Gaza Strip, close to the Israeli border and in the midst of much of the turmoil that occurs in the area. Farah's mother, grandfather, aunt and three uncles were all killed in the same attack that injured Farah, causing her severe third degree burns on parts of her body. The Palestine Children's Relief Fund was able to help Farah, securing her safe passage from Gaza and sponsoring her travel and treatment in San Diego, California. With her grandmother accompanying her, Farah is hosted by Arab-American families in the city as part of the arrangement. While staying with her first host family, Farah is being examined by a plastic surgeon, a difficult process for a child surrounded by unfamiliar faces. A month later she is taken in by a new family - the Jubrans. Former nurse, Amal Jubran, is a Lebanese Christian, born in Haifa. Throughout her nine-month ordeal, the whole Jubran family becomes very attached to Farah as she makes great strides in both her recovery and development as a child. When she returns to her family in Gaza, Amal finds it hard to move on; but almost three later, she seizes the opportunity to visit Farah - only to have her worst fears realised. Farah has readjusted to life in Gaza with her new stepmother and extended family and doesn't appear to remember Amal or her time in California at all. Amal is also not satisfied with the follow-up care or general lifestyle Farah is being afforded back in her home town. Are Amal's expectations too high? And is contentment a subjective emotion? More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

On July 8, 2014, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, aimed at stopping alleged rocket fire from Gaza into the occupied territories. One of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip, Shujayea, was claimed by Israel to be the site of Hamas 'terror tunnels'. The attack started late on July 19, initiating 24 hours of sustained air bombardment and artillery fire. An American military officer talking to Al Jazeera said 11 Israeli artillery battalions fired around 7,000 shells into Shujayea over that 24-hour period, in which at least 65 Palestinians were killed and 288 wounded. One paramedic reported over 200 calls for help at the peak of demand, one from virtually every house on targeted streets. The emergency services responded to every callout with scant regard for their own safety. In this film, cameraman Khaled Hamad joins local paramedics in Shujayea as they attend to the dead and wounded at the height of the raid. Risking his life, he documents the atrocities committed against civilians in the neighbourhood during Operation Protective Edge. A number of journalists were killed. News photographer Rami Rayan was killed whilst shooting stills of a busy market where locals were shopping during a brief humanitarian truce. Knowing the risks, Hamad continues to film until his camera dramatically captures the raid in which he and paramedic Fouad Jaber come under direct attack. Paramedics, Hamad's fellow journalists and family all maintain that Israel targeted journalists in order to try and minimise coverage of what the Palestinians described as a 'massacre'. Most of the footage in the film is Hamad's, his camera never stops shooting even after he is struck, and continues rolling long after he has taken his final breath. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe