Journalists: Gaza's last frontier?

This article was meant to be a think piece, on how journalists in Gaza City were using innovative social media to get stories out under unimaginable conditions. It is not.

God knows we’ve seen a lifetime of articles attempting to explore the technicalities of a ‘war’ to appear impartial or nuanced. How can we feign balance with 75 years of brutal occupation and a ‘war’ where one side has the unquestioning support of the world's largest military-industrial complex and the other has a population where almost half are children?

As Western media refuses to acknowledge the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people,

Palestinian journalists, healthcare workers, aid workers and civilians are working in near-deadly conditions, pleading with the world to recognise the genocide unfolding as Israel targets them, their families and the population of Palestine.

With Israel withholding aid, electricity and fuel, Palestinian journalists have been repeatedly targeted by operations resulting in 40 deaths since Israel increased its brutally oppressive regime after the events of October 7th.-

Western media has shown little remorse in the face of Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign, preferring instead to repeatedly vilify the Palestinian people and anyone who may empathise with them. The question ‘Do you condemn Hamas’ has become second nature for Western news presenters, thrown around at guests who are pleading with the world to have empathy with a population where entire families are being erased indiscriminately. While mainstream news presenters sideline their humanity for a cheap headline, Palestinian journalists face death, or torture for speaking the truth.

Reporters have become the only line of defence Palestine has, the only communication for the horrors being perpetrated upon the population, half of whom are children.

As Palestinian journalists fight to articulate what is happening and document the horrors experienced by their families, friends, neighbours and colleagues, they are constantly aware of the target over their heads and the real dangers that face them. On the first day of Israel’s advances on Palestine, 6 journalists were killed, with the death toll now standing at over 50 confirmed deaths of journalists and media workers according to the CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists).

A statement from the CPJ, who are currently investigating crimes against journalists in Gaza said ‘Those (journalists) in Gaza, in particular, have paid and continue to pay, an unprecedented toll and face exponential threats. Many have lost colleagues, families, and media facilities and have fled seeking safety when there is no safe haven or exit.’

The targeting of journalists became excruciatingly apparent last Wednesday when the IOF sieged one of Gaza’s last remaining hospitals, Al Shifa Hospital and threatened journalists not to stand near windows or doors and not to leave the main block of the hospital.

The IOF claimed they found weapons and tunnels under the hospital but, after releasing and re-releasing footage of intelligence found by soldiers, the claims were decided to likely be false after BBC scrutiny showed the IOF had ‘yet to provide believable evidence to justify its slaughter of civilians in hospitals across Palestine’.

While Western journalists sit, safe in office blocks, curating the catchiest headline to sell stories about those whom they’ll never have to care about more than to sell a cheap story to a paper complicit in the deaths of thousands, Palestinian journalists Like Noor Harazeen are forced to take camp in hospitals, living on less than a meal a day, in acute danger as Israel targets them as they attempt to tell the world the stories of Palestine under attack.

Harazeen, a journalist and TV correspondent based in Gaza has been based in one of the few remaining hospitals since Israel's advances in early October. With little aid able to get into Gaza as Gaza alone has a population of 2.3 million people, and currently, around 14 aid trucks a day can make it in, that is if they don’t get destroyed by Israel’s drone strikes, gunfire and chemical weapons, she spoke to Sludge about the conditions journalists, like herself, in Gaza face.

“The bombing has limited our ability to report. We could not go live on our channels due to what is going on, we’ve received Esims but these are also not working well as they disconnect very quickly and don’t work as before.”

“Journalists are some of the only people in Gaza who have access to the internet at the moment. It is rare now to find anyone else posting about what is happening because ordinary people have little to no internet access.”

Contact with the outside world becomes harder and harder each day as Israel advances its attacks, supported by politicians ignoring the pleas of their voters. Public support for a ceasefire has soared in recent weeks with 76% of UK citizens supporting a ceasefire according to a YouGov poll. As Israel aims it’s attacks indiscriminately, Harazeen said everyone living in Gaza has become a target.

“I would say that everyone is targeted in Gaza, it does not matter if you are a civilian or a militant or a journalist, a doctor. Even if you are Palestinian or not Palestinian.”

“I personally have a Dutch friend that was killed in Gaza, even Israeli captives were killed in Gaza because of the crazy heavy Israeli bombing.”

Although the majority of Israel’s advances are seemingly indiscriminate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netianyahu stating outright his aims to “flatten the enclave” of Gaza City, there is concern that journalists are being tracked and targeted by the IOF. Popular Palestinian journalist and photographer Motaz Azaiza spiked concern when he revealed he had received multiple phone calls from a No Caller ID number, recording the calls to his Instagram story, where he was threatened and told that there would be more killing, to stop his press coverage and that Palestinians should “flee to Egypt”.

Al Jazeera’s Arabic correspondent, Anas al-Shareef, one of the only remaining journalists in the north of Gaza reported on Monday that he received several calls from the Israeli army threatening him to stop all media and press coverage and leave the north. Via social media, he stated that he also received several messages via WhatsApp specifying his whereabouts. In a video posted to his Instagram, he said “Despite the threat and everything, I will not leave and will remain to cover the crimes of the occupation in the North”.

Other journalists have had drone cameras intercepted and expressed fears that mobile phones and other equipment have been ‘tapped’ by the IOF.

As Palestinian journalists bear the pain of their people for the world to see, social media has become an essential tool, as well as independent news networks.

Western media companies, from the so-called ‘impartial public broadcaster’ the BBC to the openly leftwing Guardian news have shown that their highly regarded ‘impartiality’ is shrouded in bias and corruption. Most recently a Guardian news report referred to an exchange of ‘39 Palestinian prisoners’ for ‘13 Israeli hostages’.

The indifference in the language used towards Palestinian hostages (mainly children and women) is just one of hundreds of examples of Western mainstream media bias towards the Israeli government, its aims and actions.

Harazeen, who has worked in Gaza, her parents homeland, since the start of her career in 2004 has followed much of the coverage of the war on Gaza said if the occupation had been covered impartially, it would look very different.

“I, myself, do not mind the idea of impartiality in media. If impartiality means viewers get the full story, from both sides, they can make up their minds for themselves”.......“I wish that all the channels would cover both sides the same way, but what is actually happening is that they are taking sides.”

As journalists like Harazeen and civilians in Gaza continue to be killed indiscriminately, it begs the question: when will western media uphold it’s so-called impartiality standards and transparently report the terror inflicted upon the people of Palestine for 75 years?