With the ongoing genocide in Palestine, enabled by Israel’s horrific dehumanisation of Palestinians, Gaza Surf Club (2016) is a necessary depiction of Palestinians as people, full stop. They are people who love Gaza, who love Palestine, who love their family and friends and their land and above all, surfing.
The documentary follows a group of Palestinian surfers and their everyday lives in the Gaza strip, exploring the freedom and hope that surfing provides amidst war and occupation.
It focuses on three individuals: Mohammad Abu Jayab, 42, who works as a fisherman and teaches children surging; Ibrahim Arafat , 23, a surfer who wishes to travel to Hawaii to learn how to craft surfboards and open a surf shop; and Sabah Abu Ghanem, 15, who loves surfing despite her community’s disapproval of women participating in the activity. It also features Matthew Olsen, an American director of a non-profit organisation that founded the Gaza Surf Club in 2008, who is well-acquainted with the community and close friends with Ibrahim.
Viewing Gaza Surf Club in 2024, with the context of the ongoing Genocide in Palestine, is a heartbreaking experience — but hopeful nonetheless. The documentary opens with a breaking news voiceover, echoing an all-too-familiar phrase: “a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been broken once again”. Interspersed with gorgeous footage of the surfers carving out on Mediterranean waves breaking onto the Gazan shoreline, this audio serves as a sobering reminder of the terrors Gazans face daily despite their longing for freedom.
Throughout the first quarter we are introduced to the surfers, the overwhelming humanity of these people and their hopes, dreams, and desires contrasted with their painful inability to realise them.
Our first encounter with Ibrahim involves the young man perched on rocks overlooking the sea, telling the story of a woman from Qatar he proposed to and then was rejected by. Ibrahim asks why he was rejected, and the answer from her is simple: “I do not want to live in Gaza”.
For Ibrahim, war and uncertainty has become routine. This scene is a stark reminder of an ongoing reality for Palestinians living in Gaza, and as Ibrahim looks onto the crashing waves below, some semblance of hope is bubbling beneath the surface. .
Ruminating on the reality of surviving under occupation, one of the surfers proclaims that “from the moment you’re born until you die, there is no hope”. There are multiple montages of the group surfing, depicting their infectious energy as they run towards the waves, and performing an energetic dabke on the sand. It all solidifies the hope that there is still a future on the horizon , however small, remaining in Gaza.
Sabah is introduced to us through childhood videos filmed by her father of her gleefully surfing as a young girl. Now 15, she reminisces about a time where she could surf freely, before she became a young woman contending with cultural and social restrictions which disavow her surfing dreams.
Her father reminisces too, lamenting on his fond memories teaching her. It becomes clear that surfing was a cathartic exercise, and is now often a symbol of pain, as we watch Sabah sadly view her younger brothers surf the waves. Sabah’s story illustrates the fact that there exist numerous barriers to freedom of movement for women in Gaza, which is restricted not only through Israeli laws but also through Palestinian societal norms.
Even though gliding above the Mediterranean waves is the pinnacle of freedom for surfers in Gaza, their ability to even access the sea is increasingly restricted, with Israel closing in on the Gazan shoreline with their borders and tankers. Mohammad explains that an initial 20 mile ocean radius has now shrunk to three miles, making it difficult to surf, fish, and swim expansively.
There exist other barriers to surfing as well: they are not allowed to import surfboards, and the materials required to construct them are impossible to find in Gaza. Mohammad tells us that they were able to procure some boards via Israel a few years ago, who then confiscated them for two years until the Red Cross intervened to allow them into Gaza.
The boards clearly serve not only as a physical mechanism necessary for surfing, but also as a microcosmic symbol of freedom for the Gazans.
Mohammad cares for the boards like they are his own children, proclaiming that “my surfboard is my son and daughter” and jokes that during the war, he was most worried about his boards because “you can replace children but you can’t replace the boards”.
His love of surfing is touching to witness, as he tells the audience that “surfing is what makes me forget everything…in the waves, I’m in a different place” and describes his life as a journey “from home to the sea and back home again”.
Later on, Ibrahim finally gets a visa to travel to Hawaii and learn how to create surfboards, to fulfil his dreams of opening a surf shop in Gaza. It’s a moment of pure joy and hope, as his hard-fought battle for a visa — involving five rejections from the Egyptian authorities — has finally been won. But it is, like most elements of this documentary, punctuated by the persistent presence of war, with Matthew reminding him that “you should come as soon as you can, because there might be another war”.
Ibrahim journeys to Hawaii, and is met with affection and excitement by Hawaiian surfers, who teach him how to carve and sculpt boards in their surf shop. He is offered and drinks holy water which signifies respect for the Hawaiians and their gods, cementing a strong friendship. It reminds me that the parallels between Palestinians and Hawaiians are clear, with both peoples dispossessed of their land and agency by colonising powers: Israel and the United States of America, respectively.
With the USA currently funding and enabling the Israeli governments ongoing genocide of the Palestinians, it is more important than ever to be aware that structures of oppression are strongly interlinked and colonial powers often work together to maintain their dominance.
Toward the end, we see more footage of Sabah, less rueful about surfing and more defiant now, as the camera follows her and her father out into the Mediterranean. Her father zips through the water in a jetski, Sabah slowly getting ready to dive into the ocean. She’s wearing her hijab at first but slowly begins to take it off, coaxed gently by her father as he reassures her that it’s okay and she can do what she likes.
The documentary produces a beautiful montage of her surfing with the jetski, hair blowing in the wind, a rare blissful smile on her face — a smile viewers have only seen once before, in childhood surfing videos.
It’s difficult not to imagine where these surfers are now, not just in their surfing journey but in their lives as Palestinians: whether they’ve escaped the Israeli bombardment, whether they’ve made it through the famine, whether they’ve fled to Rafah — the questions are endless, and clear answers are unavailable.
Gaza Surf Club, keenly aware of the endless instability and perpetual war in the region, ends with a clear message of hope: “this situation won’t last forever. It will change one day for sure and be better than before. They say: nobody can sit forever nor stand forever. The world keeps turning”.
Gaza Surf Club (2023) played at the Palestinian Film Festival Australia.
