August 21, 2025 |
The Oath, a The Guardian-published documentary directed by London-based documentary and commercials director and 10 Magazine contributor Louis Hollis and filmmaker Liane Aviram, follows Dr. Lina Qasem-Hassan, a Palestinian doctor living and working in Israel, within its healthcare system. The 22-minute film tracks Qasem-Hassan as she grapples with the emotional weight of the escalating war, as well as what it means for her commitment to her medical oath (the Hippocratic Oath), which despite hardship, has remained unwavering. Here, we speak to Hollis and Aviram to hear more about how they first got in touch with Qasem-Hassan, their experience working together on the project and what they learnt from telling Qasem-Hassan’s story.
The documentary follows Dr. Lina Qasem-Hassan, a Palestinian doctor living and working in Israel. How did you first get in touch with Dr. Lina and how did the idea for the documentary come about?
We first came across Lina through an article on an Israeli Palestinian investigative media outlet, +972 Magazine. We reached out without a fully formed idea, but started talking to her about the possibility of making a film exploring the experiences of Palestinians working in Israel’s healthcare system. The story of Palestinians inside Israel, who make up around 20 per cent of the population, isn’t something that’s often reported on, and we felt it was a side of the conflict that wasn’t really being spoken about. Speaking to Lina, she told us that approximately a quarter physicians in the Israeli healthcare system are Palestinian.
It was immediately clear this was more than a medical story; it was about identity, belonging, and the quiet psychological negotiations that unfold every day inside Israel’s healthcare system, often touted as one of the most advanced in the world.
You hadn’t worked together on a film prior to The Oath. How was the experience working together on this project?
For the first eight months we made the film entirely on our own, from pre-production through the shoot and into the early stages of the edit, juggling both financing and finding the time to work on it. Being in a relationship while working on such an emotionally charged story was taxing, to say the least, but we became each other’s safety net. We’re both avid consumers of news, from long-form journalism to political commentary. While we were making the film, against the backdrop of the genocide unfolding in Gaza and the flood of graphic videos on social media, working on Lina’s story became, paradoxically, a refuge. It offered us space away from the relentless images of suffering, but also reinforced in us a continued sense of purpose throughout making the film.
Dr. Lina demonstrates a lot of inner strength in the documentary, remaining committed to her medical oath despite the negative treatment she’s faced after speaking out about the war in Gaza. What did you learn from telling her story?
The experience underscored the immense courage and defiance it takes to speak truth to power in an atmosphere of repression and silencing. Lina is one of many Palestinians sustaining Israel’s medical system while enduring persecution and ethno-nationalism on steroids. At many points during the edit, we feared Lina could face serious backlash, even physical harm, in Israel. We consulted leading human rights lawyers in Israel-Palestine to advise us on which parts might need to be changed. Nevertheless, Lina remained steadfast in her commitment, both as a doctor and as a Palestinian, refusing to alter the film for the sake of her own safety.
Lina has an extraordinary ability to treat the person in front of her with grace, even in the midst of profound personal loss. She sees everyone through the lens of healthcare, that our bodies are all the same, and everyone deserves the same care. There is a verse in both Islam and Judaism that says, “Whoever saves a life, it is as though they had saved all of humanity.” Lina certainly embodies that truth.
Can you walk us through how you developed the documentary from the initial idea into the final film? Did you find it took shape as you filmed, or was there a specific storyboard you developed beforehand? And why did you feel this was the best approach?
We knew from the outset this would not be a straightforward story. We wanted to capture the contrast between Lina’s external and internal worlds – her public role as a doctor in Israeli society and chairwoman of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and her more private identity as a Palestinian. At the time, far-right Defense Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had passed a new law prohibiting any film or artwork deemed to support “terrorism”. In reality this covers the documentation of any Palestinian stories in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. We entered the country extremely cautiously, careful about who we spoke to in the early days of production.
While in Israel, we filmed in an observational, fly-on-the-wall style, following Lina’s day-to-day work across Israel and the West Bank and capturing just some of the pressures she faces in her professional life. We also conducted an in-depth interview with her in Arabic, asking questions that prompted her to reflect on the war and how it had reshaped her work. Throughout the film, we wanted to include the constant hum of Israeli radio and TV news, with relentless coverage of October 7 hostages and the war, reflecting the dominant narrative surrounding her. There was no reporting at all on the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza. At the time we filmed with her Lina and her family were still processing the recent trauma of losing a relative in Gaza.
We had intended to return to Israel-Palestine, but war with neighbouring Iran broke out, and Hezbollah began firing rockets, one landing in Lina’s hometown of Tamra, forcing us to cancel our plans. In early 2025, we brought in Oscar-winning filmmaker Rachel Szor to shoot some final scenes with Lina, helping bring the project to a close.
The documentary discusses a personal loss Dr. Lina has experienced since the war began. How did you and Liane balance your vision for the documentary with ensuring her personal experience stayed front and centre?
We stayed in close contact with Lina throughout the year after filming, as much of what is in the film happened after we left. While the events evolved, the tone we had recognised early on, of a society engulfed in a desire for war and revenge, remained constant. We shaped the story carefully over time, drawing on brilliant feedback from our executive producers Jess Gormley and Lindsay Poulton at The Guardian and Charlie Phillips. We took our lead from Lina’s own sensibilities, balancing anger and activism with humanity and grace, and never letting the wider political situation colour her relationships with her Israeli-Jewish patients.
Filming started in March 2024, and since then the situation in Gaza has worsened. Dr. Lina wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian to accompany the documentary’s release. Was that always planned, or was it a more recent development? Why was it important to include?
The conflict has continued to escalate steadily since we filmed in 2024, regional escalation and in Gaza widespread destruction, famine, ethnic cleansing, all being linked and recognised widely now as a genocide. It presented us with difficult editorial decisions about how to shape the evolving story around Lina’s own story. We decided to set the film over roughly a year between February 2024 and February 2025. Highlighting a specific moment in time: when Lina felt most at risk for speaking out. The accompanying The Guardian op-ed gave Lina the chance to respond to the film, offering further context and updates on the state of Gaza’s healthcare sector, the current treatment of Palestinian physicians working in Israel. She also gives powerful reflections on how both her story and the situation have evolved up to the current moment in the summer of 2025.
Photography courtesy of Louis Hollis.
