Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 100 journalists and media workers in Gaza and injured and arrested dozens more. The Committee to Protect Journalists determined that some of the journalists were targeted by Israel. (Israel monitors the phones of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and maintains a population registry of every Palestinian between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.)
Ghousoon Bisharat is the editor-in-chief of +972 Magazine, one of the few independent media outlets based in Israel-Palestine. +972 Magazine is one of the journalism collectives (including Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada) that I rely on for news and analysis.
Bisharat sent this email this past Tuesday, June 4, to supporters of the magazine. The email is an appeal for financial support (please do if you are so inclined), but I am publishing it because what she says about the courage and commitment of her journalist colleagues is part of the story of Gaza. Her colleagues are not foreign reporters (whom Israel has barred from entering the territory) who have dropped in for an assignment. They are living the genocide and risk everything to bring us the stories while their families and friends suffer and die around them. (Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada also have correspondents in Gaza.)
Please follow the links to read their deeply moving stories. — Danny
It has been eight months since our lives in Israel-Palestine were thrown into total upheaval. As the editor-in-chief of +972, I wanted to share with you, as a member of +972, a little bit about what happens behind the scenes of our journalism.
Since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, Gaza has been under a ruthless assault that has unraveled life there beyond recognition. Our work with Palestinian journalists in Gaza has always been a vital part of our reporting, but it has also been a significant challenge, given Israel’s 17-year-long siege and regular military attacks on the Strip. The current war, unprecedented in its scope and severity, has wrought unimaginable suffering to everyone in the Strip, including our reporters.
Working with journalists in Gaza since the start of the war has meant struggling to stay in contact amid periodic and prolonged communications blackouts, checking in on the safety and wellbeing of them and their families on a daily basis, and trying to assist them in any way we can from afar. It is a testament to their courage and their skill that they have continued reporting while trying to survive with their families amid relentless bombardments, frequent displacement, and deprivation of basic supplies like food, water, and electricity.
Some of our reporters have managed to leave Gaza, in part with our support. Mahmoud Mushtaha, who managed to cross the border into Egypt, wrote movingly about his journey out of Gaza: “‘One member of this family must survive after the war, so that our name doesn’t get wiped off the population registry,’ my father said, hiding his tears, when I told him I was considering leaving Gaza. I suddenly wished I hadn’t said anything. I felt so selfish. I couldn’t finish the conversation, so I went outside to walk among the rubble of northern Gaza. My heart couldn’t bear to hear my family urging me to leave and save myself.”
Fleeing Gaza was also very difficult for Mohammed Zaanoun and Mohammed Mhawish, as they both had to leave parents, siblings, and friends behind. Zaanoun, an award-winning photojournalist, left the Strip in February with his four children and wife, all of whom were traumatized by the war. Mhawish, who also left Gaza with his 2-year-old son Rafeeq and wife Asmaa in April, wrote in his latest article for +972 about his generation’s shattered dreams: “The losses that we’ve suffered — and are still counting — over the past seven months are immeasurable. They reflect not just homes and livelihoods, but also the dreams and aspirations of entire generations.”
It has been indescribably difficult to support our colleagues in these terrifying times. Another of our incredible reporters, Ruwaida Amer, was on the list of those scheduled to leave Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah Crossing. But her plans were upended when, on the exact day she was supposed to leave, Israel launched its invasion of Rafah and took control of the border, closing Gaza off from the rest of the world and preventing anyone from crossing.
Meanwhile, Ibtisam Mahdi, the mother of 8-year-old Mayar and 7-year-old Yousef, has been displaced seven times since the start of the war, but is still fiercely reporting from her tent, and also waiting for the day she can leave in order to provide her children with some relief from the sounds and dangers of the bombs. And Ibrahim Mohammad is still sheltering in a school in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, struggling to provide food for his four children in the throes of a worsening famine.
These Palestinian journalists are more than our colleagues — they are our comrades and our friends, and our hearts are with them.
All of us at +972 feel the weight and urgency of our work, especially in supporting our colleagues in Gaza. Now, more than ever, we feel the weight of the responsibility to provide a platform for their reporting, so that the world can hear their stories directly from them. This is also true of the work by Gaza-based journalists that we publish in Hebrew on Local Call, which we co-publish with Just Vision, and which is the single best (and almost only) resource Israelis have to find such information and reporting in their language.
Thank you for being a member of +972 and for being a part of this work. Your financial support allows us to continue, and your moral support encourages us to do so.
In solidarity,
Ghousoon Bisharat