Severed, a Gaza film I co-produced, is about one boy — and all of us

Through the story of a boy who lost everything, we tell the truth about a people who continue to live.

I recently helped co-produce a film on Gaza called Severed, a short documentary that follows the story of Mohamad Saleh, an eighteen-year-old amputee from Gaza.

Mohamad is a survivor of five major Israeli assaults on Gaza, though that word doesn’t begin to hold what he’s endured. He lost his leg at twelve to an Israeli bullet, fired by a sniper. Since then, he’s lost his friends, his home, and, later on, members of his family — pieces of himself scattered through five major assaults on Gaza. And yet, he’s still standing and trying to shape a life.

When my partner Jen Marlowe, director of Severed, asked me to join her efforts, I didn’t hesitate. I said yes before she could even finish her offer, because I knew that story had to be told. I knew what it meant and how easily it could be forgotten, sidelined, or silenced altogether.

From the very beginning, the journey of putting the film together was marked with care and responsibility, by walking beside a young man as he gave voice to a grief too deep for most people to imagine — and trying to ensure that voice was honored.

I first met Mohamad in Cairo, where he now lives in exile. The moment we sat together, I could feel the weight he carried. His voice was soft, almost careful, like someone who had learned to measure his words because too many of them had been met with silence. But when he spoke about Gaza and what he remembered and what he couldn’t forget, there was a clarity, a sharpness that made it impossible to look away.

In that meeting, I began to see a reflection of my younger self, also displaced and carrying loss. I saw a generation of Palestinians who’ve grown up under drones learning the language of grief before they learned how to write their names.

And so from that moment, I carried Mohamad’s story as someone who had lived too many of the same truths. That closeness was both a gift and a burden. It demanded more of me. I followed the development of the story from beginning to end — from Cairo to Gaza and back and forth and to the editing room. Every scene, every decision, every silence we left in was intentional.

Jen gave me the trust and space to do that. She invited me in as a full partner. We built this film with respect and reflection at every stage, aware of how delicate it was to turn one boy’s pain into something larger without distorting it. That balance — between the individual and the collective, truth and trauma — was always at the heart of Severed.

Mohamad Saleh at his apartment in Cairo, in a still from 'Severed.' (Courtesy)

What emerged is a film that I believe holds deep truth. It sits with the emotional wreckage and allows us to feel what it means to live with an amputated past, and yet still dream of a future. It shows the quiet cruelty of exile, the empty chairs at dinner, and the nightmares that still arrive even when the bombs don’t. And it does so through the voice of someone who never asked to be a symbol, only to be seen.

For me, co-producing Severed was a moment of return. It reminded me why I do this work. As a journalist, I’ve reported on Gaza through every horror it has faced. But this film gave me a different language — one rooted in emotion, memory, and presence. It made me slow down and sit with the pain, rather than explain it.

More than anything, it gave me a sense of purpose. I felt deeply, every day we worked on it, that we were building something that would outlive the news cycle, a document of war, love, longing, and dignity.

That is why I want people to watch Severed. It’s the kind of story that rarely gets told. 

I urge you to watch the film here: Severed – Full Film 

And I hope you’ll also read Jen’s powerful piece on the film, published in The Nation: “Severed: The story of a boy from Gaza.” (If you’re interested in helping get word out about Severed, you can contact Jen here.)

I am humbled to have helped bring Mohamad’s story into the world, which asks for nothing but witness, reminding me who I am and what I owe.