[ "We as journalists are trying our best to publish and spread the
truth, despite the closures and restrictions we face," he says.
"We’ll continue to publish, to live, to rebuild our lives, and to
revive the region. We wont give up."]
[[link removed]]

THESE JOURNALISTS ARE REPORTING FROM GAZA AMID ISRAELI BOMBARDMENT  
[[link removed]]


 

Zahra Hankir
December 18, 2023
Teen Vogue
[[link removed]]


*
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*
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*
*
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_ "We as journalists are trying our best to publish and spread the
truth, despite the closures and restrictions we face," he says.
"We’ll continue to publish, to live, to rebuild our lives, and to
revive the region. We won't give up." _

Image credit: The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ),

 

On the 31st day of the Israel-Hamas war,
[[link removed]] Palestinian
journalist Ayat Khadoura posted a video
[[link removed]] on Instagram with the
text, "My final message to the world." Khadoura, dressed in black, is
distressed. She cries as she speaks, sometimes pausing to collect
herself. "We never imagined we’d be in this situation, living a life
that doesn't have the bare minimum of human rights," she says. "As
much as people have filmed and documented what’s happening, there
are some things you can't explain. When the war ends, who’ll be left
to tell people what happened to us? We saw everything being destroyed
right in front of our eyes."

Two weeks later, on November 20
[[link removed]],
Khadoura was killed in an Israeli airstrike on her home in northern
Gaza, according to data collected by the Committee to Protect
Journalists.

On the 46th day of the Israel-Hamas war,
[[link removed]] the day after Khadoura was
killed, the photojournalist
[[link removed]] Montaser Al-Sawaf posted a
selfie. His face had been marred by injuries sustained in an attack
that killed 45; among the casualties were his mother, father, two
brothers, and their children, he wrote. "Unfortunately, I can't find a
doctor to treat me in Gaza City. There is no hospital for treatment or
even doctors," he explained. "We will continue our coverage despite
everything."

Ten days later, on December 1,
[[link removed]] Al-Sawaf
was killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to CPJ. "We, his
colleagues, were obligated to write breaking news on [Montaser's]
killing," the Palestinian journalist
[[link removed]] Hind Khoudary wrote in
a post [[link removed]]. "We reported his
killing with our tears. We have been reporting on the killing of our
beloved ones since day one. Montaser chose to stay in Gaza. He was one
of the few colleagues that stayed and risked his life to report on
what was happening in the north... Montaser's smile will stay in my
heart, forever."

These are just two accounts of dozens of deaths. At least 64
[[link removed]] journalists
have been killed during the war, according to CPJ. The majority, 57,
were Palestinian; four were Israeli and three Lebanese. The nonprofit
says this is the deadliest period for reporters since it started
compiling records in 1992. On average, one journalist or media worker
is dying per day,
[[link removed]] a
pace the International Federation of Journalists says is
unprecedented.

"Journalists should be allowed to operate safely without the danger of
dying," Mohamad Bazzi, a journalism professor
[[link removed]] at
New York University tells _Teen Vogue_. "There's a clear distinction
in international law: Journalists must be considered civilians and
therefore need to be protected. The aggressor party — in this case,
Israel — needs to take steps to protect journalists. Instead, we're
seeing a targeted campaign against journalists and their families."

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has filed
[[link removed]] a
war crimes complaint with the International Criminal Court, detailing
at least nine cases in which journalists (eight Palestinian and one
Israeli) were killed since October 7. RSF,
[[link removed].] the Arab
and Middle Eastern Journalists Association
[[link removed]], and the IFJ
[[link removed]] are calling for journalists to be
protected.

While international organizations push for accountability, reporters
on the ground are facing extraordinary challenges. On October 13
[[link removed]],
Lebanese photojournalist and videographer Issam Abdallah
[[link removed]] was killed by Israeli
shelling near the Lebanese border while wearing a press vest
[[link removed]],
according to RSF; several other journalists accompanying him were
wounded. (Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, has exchanged fire
with the Israeli army.) A Human Rights Watch
[[link removed]] investigation
found two Israeli strikes were “apparently deliberate attacks on
civilians, which is a war crime,” with Amnesty International adding
in a separate report that the group was “visibly identifiable as
journalists.”
[[link removed]] Israel
has said the incident is under review.

CPJ says it’s investigating whether some of the other deceased
journalists were targeted, among them Belal Jadallah,
[[link removed]] who was killed after an Israeli
missile struck his car in Gaza. Jadallah, who trained independent
journalists as the director of Press House-Palestine
[[link removed]], was a revered and influential figure in
Gaza, beloved by many. [[link removed]]

"There’s no safe haven for these journalists," Sherif Mansour,
[[link removed]] the
Middle East and North Africa program coordinator at CPJ, tells _Teen
Vogue_ in a phone interview. Their deaths "are part of a deadly
pattern that existed before this war, which has left Palestinian
journalists in a precarious situation and to a chilling effect.
We’ve seen a pattern of journalists being killed with their
families, or after they were threatened, their families being killed
in Israeli bombings."

In May 2023, one year after the killing of respected journalist
Shireen Abu Akleh,
[[link removed]] CPJ
published a report
[[link removed]] that
found that over two decades, 20 journalists had been killed by Israeli
military fire, with no one held accountable. While the IDF did
eventually apologize for Abu Akleh’s killing, Israel’s Military
Advocate General’s Office said, “It did not intend to pursue
criminal charges or prosecutions of any of the soldiers involved,”
according to CNN. In a statement to ABC
[[link removed]],
the IDF claimed that it "takes all operationally feasible measures to
protect civilians and to facilitate freedom of the press." They did
not further elaborate on specific allegations. A US
intelligence assessment
[[link removed]],
reported by CNN, has since found that about half of the munitions that
Israel has dropped on Gaza are “dumb bombs,” which are unguided
and imprecise.

Amid a devastating Israeli bombardment, which according to Gaza’s
health ministry has taken more than 18,800 lives as of Dec. 18,
[[link removed]] with
around two-thirds of the dead being women and children, Palestinian
reporters have experienced injury
[[link removed]], detention
[[link removed]], power
and communication blackouts
[[link removed].],
and harassment
[[link removed]].
That’s not to mention a shortage of food and water and a lack of
access to medical care in Gaza.

And yet, despite all these risks, they continue to bring people
eyewitness accounts of Palestinian suffering: So far, more
than 51,100
[[link removed]] have
been wounded, according to the health ministry, and the war has
displaced an estimated 1.9 million.
[[link removed]] Some of these
journalists acknowledge their proximity to death as they witness many
of their colleagues fall, one by one. "Hey everyone
[[link removed]], this is Bisan from Gaza,
we're still alive," Bisan Owda
[[link removed]] says in her dispatches.
Some have been posting "goodbye messages,” with the
photojournalist Motaz Azaiza
[[link removed]] saying it's "about life or
death now
[[link removed]],"
and Doaa Mohammad,
[[link removed]] another photographer,
declaring, "We are on the waiting list… We will not forgive everyone
who let us down.”
 

[[link removed]]

Click here to listen

 

Israeli airstrikes have also led to the destruction or partial
destruction of as many as 50 media outlets in Gaza, according to RSF
[[link removed].],
which cites the Palestinian Press Syndicate. Foreign journalists have
been barred from entering Gaza, with Israel allowing only a select few
access with authorization, as part of embeds with the IDF
[[link removed]] (CNN’s
Clarissa Ward managed to visit a field hospital for a few hours
despite the ban). This has created a near-impossible environment for
complete historical documentation, partly spurring a reliance on
social media for raw updates. “The killing of journalists, their
forced displacement from the north, and severe movement restrictions
have greatly hindered efforts to monitor, document, and report on the
situation in Gaza and on violations and abuses of international
law,” the United Nations Human Rights Office in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory said in a statement
[[link removed]] on
December 14.

Palestinian reporters have shared footage
from schools-turned-shelters,
[[link removed]] refugee camps,
[[link removed]] leveled streets,
[[link removed]] overcrowded hospitals,
[[link removed]] and a bombed church
[[link removed]]. These journalists have
witnessed countless deaths and have posted imagery of civilians
observing the rubble of their homes,
[[link removed]] people standing in line to
use a toilet [[link removed]],
desperate searches [[link removed]] for
water, supermarkets running out of food
[[link removed]], and mass evacuations
[[link removed]] many say are
reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba
[[link removed]].
“Imagine everything you tried to build and achieve got lost in
seconds,” Azaiza captioned
[[link removed]] in a video with drone
footage of the widespread wreckage.

They’ve interviewed traumatized children
[[link removed]],
people with special needs
[[link removed]], and women in
makeshift maternity wards.
[[link removed]] Their posts have even
contained desperate pleas: “We’re dying, please, please do
something,” says Owda in one
[[link removed]].
But they have also offered small snippets of daily life that
illustrate the resilience of Palestinians: boys getting haircuts
[[link removed]] and helping
clean floors [[link removed]],
people baking bread
[[link removed]] and frying falafel
[[link removed]], and kids painting in
hospital courtyards. [[link removed]]

The reporting the journalists are undertaking is at once deeply risky
and personal: the death tolls on our screens often involve
their friends [[link removed]], family, or
neighbors. [[link removed]] And the rubble
and ruins they report from are the landscapes of their neighborhoods,
schools, and streets. "I wish I died
[[link removed]] before seeing this happen
to my people," Azaiza writes.

Sometimes, journalists report on the deaths of loved ones on camera.
On November 2, Salman Al-Bashir appeared overcome with emotion
[[link removed]] during a live broadcast
after learning that an Israeli air strike had killed fellow
reporter Mohammad Abu Hatab
[[link removed]].
"We can’t take it anymore, we’re exhausted. These are merely
slogans that we wear," Al-Bashir says as he takes off his helmet and
press vest, throwing them to the ground. "They don't provide real
protection for journalists. These shields do not shield us…. Souls
are being lost, one by one, with complete impunity."

Despite the losses, some have returned to work. On December 15,
a drone strike
[[link removed]] believed
to be I
[[link removed]]sraeli
[[link removed]], killed
Samer Abu Daqqa, an Al-Jazeera Arabic cameraperson, while he was
reporting from a UN school in Khan Yunis that was sheltering displaced
people and had been hit by overnight airstrikes, according to the CPJ.
Wael Dahdouh, Al-Jazeera Arabic's Gaza bureau chief, was injured
by shrapnel
[[link removed]] in
the same attack, according to the Qatar-based broadcaster. Dahdouh's
wife, daughter, son, and grandson were previously
[[link removed]] killed
in an Israeli airstrike during the early stages of the war; despite
his grief, he had returned
[[link removed]] to the field. A
testament to his commitment to journalism, the day after the Khan
Yunis attack that killed his colleague Abu Daqqa, Dahdouh resumed
reporting undeterred. He posted a photo of himself
[[link removed]] on the field in a press
vest, with bandaged arms and the caption: "Coverage continues despite
the huge wound." CPJ has called for an international investigation
[[link removed]] into
the attack.

Dahdouh, Azaiza, Owda, Khoudary, and other local reporters are being
hailed by many as heroes. In November, Azaiza was featured as Man of
the Year on the cover of GQ’s Middle East edition
[[link removed].]. Artwork
[[link removed]] portraying the
journalists has gone viral. However, Khoudary insists she’s "not a
superhero
[[link removed]]"
and is "shattered" due to the loss of relatives, friends, and
colleagues “weighing heavily on [her] soul.”
 

[[link removed]]

Click here to listen
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At the same time, there have been efforts to cast doubt on these
journalists’ reporting, with fake social media accounts
[[link removed]] adding
to the confusion. HonestReporting, the US-based media advocacy group
that says it exposes “anti-Israel media bias”
[[link removed]] questioned whether
several news organizations had prior knowledge of Hamas’s October 7
attacks on Israel, an allegation denied by the organizations in
question—Reuters, CNN, the New York Times, and AP (HonestReporting
later accepted these accounts).

In addition to the on-the-ground challenges Palestinian journalists
face, there are also "attempts to dehumanize and undermine them,"
says Hind Hassan [[link removed]],
an Emmy Award-winning journalist at VICE News. "Without them and many
others putting their lives on the line, Gaza would be an information
black hole, and the atrocities taking place would have remained buried
under the rubble.”

Concurrently, "some Western news organizations are buying into an
Israeli narrative that says nothing the Palestinian journalists say
can be trusted,” says Bazzi. Meanwhile, Western media regularly
relies on local reporters and so-called fixers to assist them with
information gathering, he adds. "There’s a long history of Western
news organizations treating local journalists as sort of a
second-class journalist [compared to] Western journalists.”

There’s a silver lining in this moment of reportage, as harrowing as
it may be, Bazzi says. Given foreign media can't freely access Gaza,
"it's harder for traditional news organizations to play the gatekeeper
role when Palestinian journalists can share their news directly" with
audiences online. This, he says, has resulted in a shift in the
narrative in some spaces, despite the power of counternarratives.

With the rising death toll, pleas to the international community are
becoming increasingly urgent. CPJ demands a "review and reform of the
rules of engagement to ensure there are safeguards for media, and when
media is identified, to respect press insignia," says Mansour. "These
are issues we would like to see Israeli allies, including the US and
European governments, raise directly and publicly with their Israeli
counterparts."

Meanwhile, Owda, Azaiza, Khoudary, and others continue to report,
sometimes quoting one another – they are civilians experiencing this
war like any other, after all. On November 4, Owda interviewed
[[link removed]] a fellow journalist,
asking him what he'd say if his message were to be heard by people all
around the world.

"We as journalists are trying our best to publish and spread the
truth, despite the closures and restrictions we face," he says.
"We’ll continue to publish, to live, to rebuild our lives, and to
revive the region. We won't give up."

_[ZAHRA HANKIR is a Lebanese journalist who writes about the cultures
and communities of the Middle East. Her work has appeared in Conde
Nast Traveller, The Rumpus, Times Literary
Supplement, McSweeney’s, Guernica Magazine, the Los Angeles
Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, Vice, BBC News, Al
Jazeera English, Businessweek, Roads & Kingdoms, and Literary Hub,
among other publications. She was awarded a Jack R. Howard Fellowship
in International Journalism to attend the Columbia Journalism School
and holds degrees in politics and Middle Eastern studies from the
American University of Beirut and the University of Manchester,
respectively. Her first book, Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab
Women Reporting from the Arab World, was awarded the Susan Koppelman
Award for the best anthology in feminist studies
[[link removed]]. She was
a finalist [[link removed]] for
the 2022 Popular Features award at One World Media and the 2022 Best
Coverage of the MENA Region award at the Arab and Middle East
Journalists Association and has had stints at BBC News in London
and at the New York Times Syndicate in Manhattan. Hankir was born in
the United Kingdom during Lebanon’s civil war, and has lived in
Sidon, Beirut, Dubai, New York, Manchester and London. She is based in
Brooklyn and regularly travels to the Middle East.]_

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