Synopsis:

During the war on Gaza, under the roar of fighter jets, Nour asks me from a shelter in Khan Younis, "Isn't it funny that we are considered the same people?" Through a screen, she looks into my room in Yafa. I live as a Palestinian citizen of Israel; she shelters in Gaza. We are the same age, share the same national identity, yet inhabit radically different realities.

We first meet through an online citizen journalism program. As communication becomes increasingly unstable, our conversations move to WhatsApp. What begins as a practical exchange slowly becomes a friendship, then a lifeline. We each begin filming our own lives. The act of filming becomes our shared language. While Nour documents repeated displacement from Rafah to Khan Younis, temporary shelters, and a tent, I film the uneasy normality of Yafa, where cafés remain open and the sea appears unchanged. As our conversations deepen, they move beyond survival into questions of womanhood, faith, family, marriage, and the futures we struggle to imagine.

Much of what Nour records no longer exists, transforming her footage into an unintended archive of places destroyed while they were still being lived in. At the same time, my camera becomes a way of confronting the guilt and contradictions of watching war from relative safety. Through self-filmed footage, WhatsApp calls, voice notes, and moments of silence, On the Sea Road unfolds as an intimate dialogue between our two lives. Connected by the same sea yet separated by borders and war, On the Sea Road follows two Palestinian women trying to hold on to one another while war continually reshapes the distance between them.

Writer, Director, and Producer

Fitnat Waked is a Palestinian filmmaker and producer from Yafa working across documentary and fiction, with experience in documentary production and international media. Her work explores identity, memory, and belonging through intimate first-person storytelling. Her short documentary The Voices of Souls (2025) was selected for the Al Jazeera Short Documentary Competition and released on Al Jazeera's digital platforms. In 2026, she completed her first narrative short, SADA. She is currently directing and producing her debut feature documentary, On the Sea Road.