A Palestinian journalist’s life and work shed light on the violence in Israel’s “dual” society

Mohammed Omer, The Nation, July 31, 2008

I am a Palestinian journalist from Gaza. At the age of 17, I armed myself with a camera and a pen, committed to report accurately on events in Gaza. I have filed reports as Israeli fighter jets bombed Gaza City. I have interviewed mothers as they watched their children die in hospitals unequipped to serve them because of Israel’s embargo. I have been recognized for my reporting, even in the United States and United Kingdom, where I have won two international awards. I have also been beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers.

This summer, at age 24, I was honored to learn that I had become the youngest journalist to receive the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, named for the famed American war reporter and awarded to journalists who counter propaganda with the truth. Although Israel has sealed Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians in what many now call the world’s largest open-air prison, Dutch MP Hans Van Baalen lobbied the Israeli government to let me leave Gaza to receive my award in person. Upon my return from London, I was surrounded by Israeli security officers. I was stripped naked at gunpoint, interrogated, kicked and beaten for more than four hours. At one point I fainted and then awakened to fingernails gouging at the flesh beneath my eyes. An officer crushed my neck beneath his boot and pressed my chest into the floor. Others took turns kicking and pinching me, laughing all the while. They dragged me by my feet, sweeping my head through my own vomit. I lost consciousness. I was told later that they transferred me to a hospital only when they thought I might die.

Today, I have difficulty breathing. I have abrasions and scratches on my chest and neck. My hands don’t function well; typing is difficult. My doctor informed me that due to nerve damage from one kick, I may be unable to father children and will need to have an operation.

Israeli attacks on journalists are not new; nor are they rare. In April, Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana was killed by fire from an Israeli tank. He was in a car, clearly marked as press. According to Amnesty International, “Fadel Shana appears to have been killed deliberately although he was a civilian taking no part in attacks on Israel’s forces.”

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the Israeli military’s widespread “abusive behavior” of Palestinian journalists. And the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that journalists covering Israeli military actions in the West Bank and Gaza “contend with perennial abuses at the hands of Israeli forces.” In 2007 alone, Israeli soldiers shot photographers from Agence France-Presse, Al-Ayyam newspaper and Al-Aqsa TV. The television cameraman, Imad Ghanem, fell to the ground when wounded. Israeli forces then shot him twice more in the legs. Both of his legs have been amputated.

Could it be that despite their tanks, fighter planes and nuclear arsenal, Israel is threatened by our cameras and computers, which give the world access to images and information about their military occupation of Palestinians? Indeed, this month a Palestinian girl filmed an Israeli soldier shooting a blindfolded Palestinian at point blank range with a rubber bullet. The video aired widely, on CNN, NBC News and the BBC, among other media outlets.

Although Palestinians face this violence daily, the images and our stories rarely travel beyond our borders. Israel seems intent on hiding its oppression of Palestinians under its rule–including its dual system of laws, one giving civil, political and social rights to Israelis, and the other denying those rights to Palestinians living under occupation. This system allows Jewish settlers in the West Bank to enjoy freedom of movement and access to healthcare and education, while Palestinian children in Gaza die of curable illnesses because hospitals have run out of medicine.

Martha Gellhorn brought to light atrocities committed in World War II and in the Vietnam War. In her tradition, I remain committed to accurate reporting from Gaza today. For this I may suffer lifelong consequences. But I hold on to the hope that Americans–as well as journalists worldwide–will impress upon Israel the need to respect the rights of reporters. Freedom of speech and a free press are hallmarks of any democracy. I am proud to call myself a Palestinian and a journalist. The might of the Israeli military will not silence my pen or darken my camera lens.

Mohammed Omer is an award-winning photographer and journalist based in Rafah Refugee Camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

Copyright © 2008 The Nation

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July 2, 2008
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Washington Report Correspondent Mohammed Omer Hospitalized Following Detention by Israeli Soldiers at Allenby Bridge Crossing

Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, Gaza correspondent for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and co-recipient of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, was hospitalized with cracked ribs and other injuries inflicted by Israeli soldiers at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan into the occupied West Bank.

Omer was returning home to Gaza after a European speaking tour and the June 16 London ceremony at which he accepted the prestigious Gellhorn Prize.

Journalist John Pilger (c), a member of the Martha Gellhorn Prize judges panel, congratulates co-recipients Dahr Jamail (l) and Mohammed Omer. Photo Paul de Rooij.

Dutch MP Hans Van Baalen, head of the parliament’s foreign relations committee, and award-winning journalist John Pilger spent weeks lobbying Israel to issue an exit permit for the 24-year-old journalist. As has been the case before, diplomatic intervention was necessary to secure permission for his return as well. Nevertheless, Israeli authorities initially refused to allow Omer to return to his home in Rafah from Amman. Finally—after missing his brother’s wedding—he was told that arrangements had been made for him to cross the border on Thursday, June 26. Dutch diplomats awaited him on the other side to escort him to the Gaza Strip.

Instead of being granted free passage, however, Omer was detained, questioned by a Shin Bet agent, strip searched at gunpoint, assaulted and dragged by the heels to an ambulance after he began vomiting and going in and out of consciousness. When he finally came to, he was in a Palestinian hospital in Jericho, where he was treated and allowed to return home in the custody of the Dutch diplomats. See the following article by John Pilger in the July 2 Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/02/israelandthepalestinians.civilliberties

The following afternoon, speaking from home, a recovering but still traumatized Omer told the Washington Report that he was having difficulty breathing and swallowing. The next day, suffering from cracked ribs and other injuries, he was admitted to a hospital in Gaza, where he remains as of this writing.

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, correspondent Mohammed Omer lies in his hospital bed in the Gaza Strip June 30, 2008. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

In his article in the August 2008 Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, “A Voice for the Voiceless,” Omer defines his life’s mission as “to get the truth out,” and describes himself as “not pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli, but simply…an eyewitness on the ground, reporting what happens and why.”

One of the Shin Bet agents who interrogated him at the Allenby crossing advised Omer not to return to Gaza, where—thanks to the Israeli siege—there is no electricity, potable water, medical supplies, gasoline or other necessities of life. Clearly Israel wants to silence Mohammed Omer’s voice, as it has silenced the voices of other journalists—most recently Omer’s colleague Fadel Shana, the 24-year-old Reuters cameraman killed by an Israeli tank shell on April 16.

Palestinian journalists risk their lives on a daily basis to tell the world what is happening in their homeland. Their words and pictures remind us that we have yet to realize the vow, “Never again!”

Sign the Petition: Please click on the button at right to sign a petition condemning Israel’s attacks on journalists, both Palestinian and international. Add your voice to Mohammed Omer’s on behalf of voiceless Gazans and all Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation—an occupation made possible by American tax dollars.