Hoda’s Story

Filmmaker: Johan Eriksson

In March 2003, 12-year-old Hoda Darwish was sitting at her desk in a UN elementary school in Khan Younis on the Gaza Strip when an Israeli high-velocity bullet was fired through her classroom window. It hit Hoda in the head. The doctors at the hospital said that she would never awaken from her coma.

But after two weeks she started to recover. When she woke up she slowly discovered that her life would never be the same again – she had lost her sight.

This poignant film looks at Hoda’s gradual mental and physical rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Centre in Gaza, as she copes with the daily pain and suffering of her injury and how she rebuilds her confidence, all in a place full of fear and tragedy.