Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

rrcharpe This film is propaganda and not objective in any respect whatsoever. It does not bring in the endless rocketing of Israel. It does not bring up the effect of Hamas on Gaza and how the Islamic terrorist organization has continually rejected peace and advocates the destruction of Israel and the wiping out of the Jewish people. When you only show bombs landing and do not show why those bombs were dropped (Islamic terrorist acts by Hamas and the other terrorists in Gaza) it simply perpetuates the antisemitism inherent in movies/documentaries of this type. To say that this film is one-sided (Muslim and Palestinian point of view) is accurate to a point: however, there is a larger and more insidious agenda here. That is to use Palestian children as pawns in a fight for survival by the Jewish people who have continually wanted to end the fighting between themselves and the so-called Palestinian people. I say so called because there never in the history of the world was a country called Palestine. There was a territory governed by Jordan, before WWII, that listed the territory as Palestine but it could have equally been called Israel as it was the exact same geographical area. Oh well, in movies one cannot expect to get an objective view and this movie stinks because it is so one sided and only highlights the plight of Palestian children but not that of the Jewish children who live in daily fear from Islamic radical terrorists coming over the border from Gaza or shooting rockets into their towns day and night for years on end. StocktonRob

solanojohn55 This is one of the purest films I have ever watched, I recommended highly! First of all it is 100% pure footage of what is it like to be on the ground as a witness of what Israel claims to us all over the world as a military targets. A user of IMDb wrote in a review by moacow" we did not see the other side justification for this type of bombing" What a numb-skull user moacow is…How in the world can you or any one justifies bombing a civilian home or a hospital or a school or even shooting with a sniper rifle babies and more. MOACOW YOU CANNOT! that is why you did not see it in the film. Israel does not explain its U.N. and international courts condiment actions to anyone in the world.As an English now American and married to a lovely American Jewish woman, I hope one day soon I will witness peace in Israel! We as people with understanding to life, we cannot let Israel continue the mass murders of Palestinians. Bloody hell! Did you notice the Israeli in-discriminant bombing of Palestinians? What kind of Army men with sniper rifles that shoots at babies and civilians? My grand fathers did not fight the criminal Hitler so Israel can take over his criminal role now they act exactly like if not worse than Hitler. My wife is ashamed of Israel and its despicable treatment of people. That is why we all must not allow Israel to enjoy our hard earned money taxes going to support their criminal behavior. We must pressure Israel to sign the 1948 agreement with the Palestinians. If they do sign it all troubles in the East will stop and maybe for once the world will not look down at our policies regarding the world. Please join me and write to your congressman and senator to pressure Israel in to signing the 1948 agreement with Palestine and stop the bloodshed of innocent people. One cannot claim to be a human being and agree with Israeli violence!

beastlee A piece i did for a human rights class at the screening at UCSB in 2011: Vibeke Lokkeberg's Tears of Gaza attempts to capture the horrifying atmosphere during the 2008-2009 assault upon Gaza by the Israeli military. The footage is raw, disturbing, and yet meaningful. Present at the screening, Lokkeberg states her goals were simple: to capture the Palestinian victims in the 22 day conflict because no journalists were allowed inside Gaza at that time. At times you cannot help but feel certain scenes are staged, and this only hurts the film because it allows those that do not want to like the film the ability to discount it entirely. Both the director and producer came off as unbiased towards the political setting of the film, arguing that both sides are victims of a war that started hundreds of years ago or which they have no "part" of or answer to. But they did come off as big proponents of human rights, and it showed as an underlying theme in Tears of Gaza. The film uses video from the citizens of Gaza as evidence of what took place, and all the footage is very personal and hand-held. In one scene the camera is running towards a house after a bombing, and citizens are digging through looking for survivors. They slowly find one body after another of toddlers, 4 of them, decapitated, bloodied—lifeless. In another scene that I personally found upsetting there are 3 babies, not more than 2 or 3, each with an execution shot (close range, precise, kill-hits) to their head or chest.The Israeli-Palestinian conflict relates to themes in class on multiple levels. There is an argument, especially recently with the information leaked by Wikileaks that there is a large element of exclusionary ideologies sanctioned by the Israeli government. In addition, there claims that Israel violates multiple agreements adopted in the Geneva conventions, particularly when dealing with the treatment of civilians— the film made it clear that, at times the Israeli military fails to make the distinction between combatants and civilians. The film did specify its documentation on the innocent, and in that sense I do believe that there is also a call for international intervention, or at the very least, knowledge of the true situation. What is clear in Tears of Gaza is that there are things happening to Palestine that should happen to no one, even in times of war—the Israelis indiscriminately kill children, fathers and mothers, and maybe intentionally, the future generations of Palestine. Both Israel and Palestine committed war crimes by killing civilians. The only distinction is the capability of each side. Israel uses a realism argument saying that Palestinian militants fired from civilian areas, and thus their systematic attacks on these areas were justified. Israel is a military powerhouse, containing one of the world's strongest militaries, effective intelligence, and advanced technology. They knew where they were firing, and what each shot was going to do. The Palestinians are still decades back in killing capability—firing rockets and mortars. The fact is ~1400 Palestinians were killed in the conflict, ~300 of which were children—Israel lost 13 people, of which 1 at the most was a child (numbers vary depending on your source). A life is a life, and there is no argument that each side violated various human rights from this war, but the sheer numbers should say something regarding the magnitude of these violations. I gathered a lot from the film due to the American media portraying are Israeli allies biasedly—I can better than before empathize with the Palestinians. Tears of Gaza did not show me who was wrong in this on-going struggle between the warring states, but it did show me the harsh reality that neither side is right.

moacow You can compare Tears of Gaza with Passion of the Jew by Mel Gibson in South Park. It is only 90 minutes of people getting slaughtered. I understand that the world should see how horrible Palestine got it, but is it really necessary to show it for 90 minutes? This film does nothing but show one perspective of the conflict, that is OK, but we do not get any briefing on why they are being bombed, we don't even see who the bombers are nor hear anything from them at all. I believe that the film would express more sympathy for Palestine if they i confronted Israel with the photos the got; how can this sort of action be defended? During the film we get three stories from three different children. Yet we also get stories from others during the film, I believe they try to create more sympathy when they hear stories from children. This does not work for me, the stories are also mixed with others and the storyline in this film is... well... a pathetic attempt to get sympathy.I agree that the world should see how they have to live day by day, but this is not the way.