The Gaza Press Corps: Blockade Runners Trafficking in Truth
| WRMEA Archives 2006-2010 - 2009 April |
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2009, pages 14-15
Gaza on the Ground
The Gaza Press Corps: Blockade Runners Trafficking in Truth
By Mohammed Omer
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ON JAN. 22, 2009, Britain’s Channel 4 television program “Dispatches” aired the first of a three-part series by journalist Jon Snow entitled “Unseen Gaza.” Snow’s report chronicled the frustrations faced by foreign journalists trying to cover Gaza from a nearby hilltop in Israel as they attempted to sift through what Snow referred to as a “huge pack of propaganda.” Israeli officials have confirmed that not only the attack on Gaza, but the accompanying public relations campaign, were carefully planned months in advance. “This is a war quite unlike any other,” Snow observed, “with the world’s media reduced to distant observers.”
Israeli authorities prevented foreign journalists from entering Gaza to report on the assault, instead designating a single spot from which they could cover the fighting. The foreign journalists quickly dubbed that spot “the hill of shame.” Filming into the war zone was restricted to two or three angles; if too much of the attack was shown, Israeli authorities declared a “secure military zone” and moved the journalists further back.
Moreover, it was impossible to conduct phone interviews with Hamas and other Palestinian leaders in Gaza because elected government officials feared the Israeli military would lock onto their mobile signals and assassinate them. This almost ensured that only one side of the story—Israel’s—got out.
As a result, it fell to the handful of journalists living in Gaza to become the voice of 1.5 million Gazans. These reporters and photographers risked their lives to tell the world what was happening in Gaza.
“I am a Palestinian first, and then a photographer,” Agence France-Presse photo-journalist Mohammed Abed, 39, stated when asked why he risks his life to be a journalist in Gaza. “My camera is the weapon of truth—a weapon that reflects Gaza to the world,” he explained.
Many journalists in Gaza cover the conflict with minimal or no financial compensation. Four lost their lives in Israel’s latest military campaign. Others lost their homes or places of employment, as Israeli jets targeted media locations. Occupation forces resorted to psychological warfare as well, telephoning journalists’ homes and telling their families to leave because they were going to be bombed. Sometimes they were, sometimes they were not—but the warning was always heeded.
“We were working day and night,” confided Abed. “It was a war, and it was a big responsibility on all of us, as our international colleagues were not allowed in. We could not find the time to even eat. Plus the nighttime events made us more stressed and worried. We were also targets as journalists. Some days we worked 18 hours non-stop.”
Speaking by telephone, Abed, the father of five, recalled what it was like to be in an urban area under air attack as “filled with fire—flares coming out of the sky thrown by Israeli F-16s at the center of Gaza City.”
He was describing the effects of one element of the Israeli arsenal—a chemical weapon commonly referred to as white phosphorous. Remnants of an Israeli white phosphorus shell, identified by the markings “M825A1” on the outer casing, were discovered in the western Gaza village of Sheikh Ajilin. The phrase “exploding smoke”—the euphemism used by the Israeli army to designate white phosphorus bombs—is stamped in Hebrew on the shell. Witnesses in Gaza state that the round was fired on Jan. 9, and residents quickly confiscated the spent shell as evidence.
Like any chemical released into the air, white phosphorous cannot be controlled once discharged. It quickly envelops all in proximity within a dense gaseous fog. Its effects are nearly immediate; its symptoms, unmistakable.
“Itching of the skin. Pain in the lungs. Coughing and a sore throat,” Abed elaborated. Even though rescuers used towels as filters to cover their heads, “still many choked and could no longer breathe,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life, and I’ve been covering Israeli attacks for more than 10 years.”
The Israeli military’s use of chemical weapons against Gaza’s civilian population was first captured on film in American filmmaker James Longley’s 2001 documentary “Gaza Strip” (available from the AET Book Club). Gazans tell Longley of canisters of gas being thrown into homes and courtyards where women and children were hiding or playing.
Mark Ellis, director of the International Bar Association in London, was quoted in the Jan. 14 Christian Science Monitor as saying, “The use of white phosphorus is banned as a weapon that causes ‘unnecessary suffering.’ It isn’t to be used in civilian areas, or indeed against people since it creates horrible damage to the human body, and unnecessarily so.” (There is no ban on its use as a smokescreen or for illumination, however.)
The International Red Cross has confirmed Israel’s use of white phosphorus and its resulting effects, as seen in the severe injuries and burns treated in Gaza’s hospitals.
After weeks of Israeli denials that it used white phosphorous on Gaza’s civilians, the Jan. 23, 2009 London Times reported that Israel admitted using this weapon on Gazans. The admission was in large part the result of the overwhelming evidence collected by Gaza’s journalists.
Due to the frequency and sheer number of Israeli attacks, “It became impossible to follow each air strike or missile,” Abed said. “Wherever they fall, wherever you walk, blood, misery and funerals follow.”
On one assignment he covered a funeral in Gaza City’s Al Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. Several graves and tombs were destroyed, filling the air with the stench of rotting corpses and gas.
“Some bodies could be seen falling from the tombs hit by missiles,” he related.
Abed’s most painful memory of this conflict, however, involved a two-year-old child whose body was wedged under a bombed house, with only her head visible beneath the foundation. “Her small body was already in rigor mortis,” the journalist explained. “They were having trouble getting her out.”
Abed paused, then added, “When I was taking this photo of this child, I was shaking the whole time, imagining my daughter Inas in the position of this child.”
A Cease-Fire—Then What?
A few days before Americans swore in their new president, Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire. Abed recalled his reaction: “I was so relieved and pleased by the cease-fire,” he said. “I went straight to Rafah to check on my mother and brothers.”
Throughout the attack he had worked without news of his family.
The cease-fire has its limits, however. “There can’t be a cease-fire when people are trapped in a big prison, borders are closed and there is no possibility of moving in or out of Gaza,” noted Abed.
The coverage of the Israeli assault by Gaza’s journalists sparked worldwide outcries. In a Jan. 22 op-ed in London’s Financial Times, the generally diplomatic Prince Turki Al Faisal of Saudi Arabia issued a blistering warning to Israel, the United States and its enablers (see this issue’s “Other Voices” supplement). Jordan withdrew its ambassador to Israel in protest, Qatar and Mauritania suspended all relations with Israel.
For Gaza’s journalists, the world’s revulsion to Israel’s massacre reflect a job well done. For the foreign journalists stranded on their hill of shame, these brave men and women of Gaza constituted the modern-day version of blockade runners—trafficking in the weapons of truth via their pictures and words.
“I fight with my camera,” Abed stated, “and for me, it’s a big responsibility to get the message out from Gaza to the world.” He knows he could be killed at any moment, he added, and has left some papers behind with his family, knowing that one day he will not return home.
As for Abed’s hopes for a solution and an end to Israel’s war on Gaza now that Barack Obama is president, “If something has to be done for Gaza, it should be now,” he emphasized. “People need actions and not words.”
However, he added, “As a journalist, I believe U.S. foreign policy will remain the same, even if the color of skin is different this time.”
Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports from the Gaza Strip, where he maintains the Web site <www.rafahtoday.org>. He can be reached at < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >.
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