Much of "Gaza Strip" follows Mohammed Hejazi, a 13-year-old newspaper vendor, who left school after the second grade and spends much of his spare time with other boys throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, even though his best friend was killed by the gunfire that is the inevitable response, and his father, who had spent time in an Israeli prison, once tied his son up to keep him at home.
Mohammed, like the adults who later in the film have their say, expresses a mixture of feelings, ranging from peaceful coexistence with the Israelis, the wish wish to be left alone and to the desire to drive the Jews not only out of Gaza but out of the region altogether.
Longley has no difficulties to find images that illustrate the reasons for their rage and despair: Israeli bulldozers demolishing houses and date groves; an absurd traffic jam on the beach after roads have been closed, emergency rooms full of wounded Palestinians, many of them children after the IDF used an unidentified gas against demonstrating Palestinians.
Longley has kept his film in a classic "cinéma vérité"-style without any voice-over narration concentrating on talking-head interviews.