Dr Mohammed Tahir on The Mission: A documentary bearing witness to Gaza's suffering and medical crisis

When Dr Mohammed Tahir arrived in Gaza in early 2024, he was not prepared for just how life-changing an experience it would be.

A British-born child of Iraqi parents, the orthopaedic and peripheral nerve surgeon would spend seven months in the Palestinian city over the course of three missions.

Volunteering as part of a medical delegation organised by the Fajr Scientific Foundation, he witnessed an unprecedented amount of pain and suffering.

Over several months, the former NHS doctor and his team would go on to perform nearly 1,200 procedures, saving the lives of many Palestinian men, women and children.

He helped hundreds more before he returned home to his family in London earlier this year and chose to dedicate everything he could to humanitarian efforts.

But not every victim of Israel's never-ending bombardment could be saved by his surgical knife. More than 70,000 people have been killed since Israel's genocide began in Gaza,​​ which is why Mohammed agreed to be the subject of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mike Lerner's documentary, The Mission, which follows the nerve surgeon's relentless labour to keep that number from rising.

The 40-year-old surgeon had already established a large social media following thanks to his self-documentation of his medical efforts, during which he "gave a voice to the voiceless and shed light on suffering."

Yet he recognised the power of cinema to tell a deeper story.

"Cinema is more enduring; it lasts longer and can be more impactful," he tells The New Arab at Mike Lerner's production office in London, just days before he would be presenting The Mission at the London Palestine Film Festival.

"This is about delivering a message, it's about showing the suffering that happened in Gaza to an audience that may not otherwise have been aware or have tried to become aware."

Mohammed was first introduced to Mike in Cairo in September 2024 by Egyptian-American filmmaker Karim Amer, an executive producer on the film and the director-producer's friend and long-time collaborator. 

"How many more dead people with their children dismembered or beheaded, burned, or limbless children must this world see for them to wake up and take action?"

Mike, best known for 2011's Hell and Back Again, 2013's Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, and 2022's The Vow, quickly recognised Mohammed as a strong journeyman. A charismatic hero whom audiences could relate to and drive this narrative of hope and resistance.

"The ultimate act of resistance is to save someone's life," Mike explains.

"Here, the Israelis wanted a person dead, and you prevented them from being dead, so someone like Mohammed is just a gift. He is very journalistic, and you can't really dispute what he's saying, because his business is facts and attention to detail."

Mike and his team followed the surgeon into Oman on his way to his third mission, filming him crossing the border before providing his nurses with "two very good iPhones" so they could continue documenting.

Mohammed and his medical colleagues travelled across the war-ravaged city, from the South to the North, at various deteriorating hospital facilities.

They captured his heroic efforts as he saved the lives of various people who had shrapnel or tiny titanium cubes lodged in wounds; others whose limbs had been severed after Israeli occupation forces had bombed apartments.

At the height of the crisis, when mass casualties were flooding into the remaining hospitals, the surgeon would tell his nurses to put down their cameras and help hold limbs together and stop people bleeding out.

"Maybe you would have had more shocking scenes," Mohammed says.

"But how many more dead people with their children dismembered or beheaded, burned, or limbless children must this world see for them to wake up and take action?"

If watching The Mission takes an emotional toll on audiences, one can only imagine how psychologically harrowing it was for Mohammed and his medical team to witness firsthand.

He recalls children dying virtually every day, the sound of people's groans, their cries and their screams of pain, people pleading with exhausted staff in the corridors of battered hospitals to help them.

"It weighs very heavily on one's soul," he laments, tears in his eyes as he recalls the camaraderie of his fellow doctors, nurses and medical staff who shared rooms, food and heartbreak.

"There were many moments where I would just disappear, go to a room sometimes, to just let out the emotion," Mohammed shares. 

"Nearly every single time, someone had their eye on me, and they would follow me into the room, close the door so it wouldn't make a show about it. They would comfort and remind me that I'm doing my best, I'm trying to help our people, and Allah will reward you."

By the end of the surgeon's four-month stint in Gaza, Mike's team received "about 100 hours of material" to sift through.

They spent February to May of 2025 going through the footage and editing it into a harrowing, heartbreaking portrait of the tireless efforts of medical professionals to spread hope and preserve life against the backdrop of brutal violence and warfare.

"We were determined not to make this a 'gore fest', but we wanted to be truthful to the situation, and these scenes are horrific," Mike explains.

"But when we see these people having been operated on, and they're recovering, that was the most amazing thing."

Still, Mohammed can't shake his uneasiness at being the focus of this film.

When he finally watched it, he had to disassociate from himself. Instead, he says, he "saw a doctor who has a similar background to me who took action — that's the thing that we wanted to drive home."

Getting people to see it is a mission in itself. A recurring pattern for films which grapple with the genocide and Israeli aggression towards the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been an inability to get mainstream distribution.

"Very few films, if not most, are not allowed to come out," Mike says, noting how his non-Palestinian documentaries have been accepted by major filmmakers and released by mainstream broadcasters.

The Mission, however, has been rejected by every major film festival, including the prestigious Sheffield Doc Fest.

"There's pushback by mainstream broadcasters who say, 'we can't show these films because we'll get a million emails and we just can't deal with the backlash'," he adds.

"I feel betrayed by this country's media – it's more than gatekeeping, it's absolute censorship."

Nevertheless, the filmmaker and surgeon still have hope.

Both showings of the film at the London Palestine Film Festival sold out. They are keen to share it with global audiences, viewers who, by witnessing 90 minutes of these grim circumstances, can empathise with a beleaguered people.

"Nothing can be solved by turning our backs on these very harsh, gruesome realities," Mohammed says.

"I'm not saying watch it and become numb. I'm saying, watch it and let your heart burn. Let that be your rocket fuel to go out and make the changes."

Hanna Flint is a British-Tunisian critic, broadcaster and author of Strong Female Character: What Movies Teach Us. Her reviews, interviews and features have appeared in GQ, the Guardian, Elle, Town & Country, Mashable, Radio Times, MTV, Time Out, The New Arab, Empire, BBC Culture and elsewhere

Follow her on Instagram: @hannainesflint