Sameh Habeeb: A Voice from Gaza Speaks to the World

By Sarah Price
July 2009 (The Independent Monitor)

It’s January 2009, and Israeli bombs have been devastating the besieged Gaza Strip for days. Hundreds are dead and injured; thousands are homeless; and the UN school in Gaza City, where civilians have been told to go for shelter, has just been bombed.

23-year-old journalist Sameh Habeeb is looking for a way to tell the world. But it is not easy: the power remains out in most of the strip, and as he searches Gaza City for somewhere to connect to the internet – often his only link to life outside Gaza – bombs fall around him.

When he finally manages to transmit his daily reports over a slow and unreliable dial-up internet connection, his words are picked up by friends and readers waiting to hear the updates, but more importantly, waiting to see if he has made it through the night. From his blog – Gaza Strip, the Untold Story – and his Facebook page, his words spread like wildfire throughout the internet:

“Day 9 of Israeli War On Gaza - Death toll 470, injured 2600, disastrous humanitarian situation. The operation started Saturday 8pm accompanied by heavy coverage from
artillery machine, naval gunboats and Air Force. Five key access witnessed the advancement of Israeli army. In the north, a group of tanks and soldiers advanced from Erez crossing and another group from Beit Lahia…”

His reporting began immediately after the bombing started on Saturday, December 28, 2008, as children were walking home from school.

“I was outside with my friends when the bombing started, and we went quickly to our houses and our families,” he recalls. “But it was very sad for the children that were killed that day, because the children were killed and no one knew about them. When they were going out from their schools, the schools were hit, because some of their schools were beside the police stations.”

At the Islamic University in Gaza City – one of the schools bombed during the war – he had studied English Language and Literature, but with the effects of the siege and what he perceived as an international blackout of news from Palestine, especially in English-language news outlets, he knew he needed to find a way to transmit word of Gaza’s suffering to the world. So, two years ago, he began to use his English skills to become a journalist. His experience, contacts, and growing readership helped support his efforts during the war, but it was still a challenge.

“It was very complicated. You had to write, you had to collect news and information about the war, and you had no power, no internet connection, and all these things you need for journalism were not available in the Gaza Strip - especially the power,” he explains. “So, when you are able to collect the news, you are not able to send the news. This is what happened to me.”

His family worked together and became a media unit, gathering news and calling hospitals and ministry departments, then translating the news into English and finding a way to transmit the details. Sameh also gave phone interviews around the clock to outside news agencies.

His family survived the onslaught, but some of his friends did not.

“Some friends of mine were killed, and I witnessed how they were killed,” he remembers. “I witnessed all the suffering. I witnessed how the people were scattered and their bodies were amputated. I saw the blood flowing in the streets near Shifa Hospital. I saw the children crying, fleeing to their houses when the bombing started that Saturday.”

His daily updates on the war brought him international attention, and when the war was over, those who had followed his reports wanted to meet him, and he accepted several European invitations to speak and give presentations about the war and on life in Gaza. Securing a visa to the UK was an ordeal in itself, but he finally made it out of Gaza through the Rafah border to Egypt in early March. He has spoken in more than 15 cities in England, and conducted meetings with parliament members, some of whom have responded very positively to his message. He has also toured Holland and France, and has more trips planned for Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, and Greece. He is also trying to obtain a student visa, so he can stay and earn his masters degree in England.

But where he really wants to make an impact is in the United States. He believes it is important to show the reality of this life to Americans who may only hear Israel’s side of the story.

“Imagine if Americans were living in the situation we are living in,” he says. “Imagine if you had in Florida, or in Texas, a separation wall in the neighborhoods. Imagine if you had in Washington, DC, 600 checkpoints. Imagine if you could not travel from Miami to Oregon. This is what the American people should be aware of - that we are suffering, we are under occupation, and we are being killed and massacred. We’re not trying to be victims. This is the truth. This is a fact being sent out by Desmond Tutu, by Jimmy Carter, by John Ging, the UNRWA field operations director, all these guys and many others. The American people should change the mentality. Not only listening to Ha’aretz, and not only listening to Fox News, and Israeli-controlled media.”

But, he says, he strives to keep his reports unbiased.

“I am a citizen journalist. I don’t want to be one-sided; I want to be fair in my points. I believe what I do is sacred, because I send out the suffering of the people. I am speaking on their behalf, and no one is doing this mission. I’m not being paid by the government, I’m not being paid by an organization. What I do is personal. I just narrate the stories and accounts from the ground, and let them judge.”

On President Obama’s recent assertions about Palestine, he said he gives him credit for talking about a Palestinian state when so few before him have done so, but he doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

“I want to be realistic about Obama. I don’t want my aspirations to reach the sky, out of nothing,” he says. “Obama is saying there should be a Palestinian state, but he is saying it in an abstract way. He won’t be able to stop the settlements, I’m sure of this. They have continued to build the settlements, despite the Oslo Agreement.

“In Netanyahu’s speech, he was talking about a Palestinian state in which we won’t have control of the borders, we don’t have an army, we don’t have control over the sea or the airspace, we have nothing. So, Obama is positive when he is talking about a Palestinian state, but he is negative when you go into the details about the meaning of the Palestinian state.”

Sameh hopes to make it to the U.S. in the next few months, and is currently accepting invitations from organizations here. He would also like to work in the U.S. as a journalist, translator or interpreter. But his mission remains one of education – the education of a world that has been told that Palestinians are terrorists and undeserving of a homeland of their own, and who will remain without one, if those who know better don’t continue to stand up and be heard.

Iraqis Fear an Uncertain Future

Mohsen Ali sleeps on a Baghdad street corner (Photo: Nizar Latif)

By Sarah Price and Nizar Latif
July 2009 (The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs)

As June 30 nears, Iraqis are waiting to see whether Washington will observe the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraqi cities. According to the agreement, all U.S. troops (except for an estimated 70,000 who will remain in Iraq as trainers and advisers) are to be withdrawn from the country by December 2011.

Under Sunni President Saddam Hussain, Iraq’s minority Sunnis were favored over the majority Shi’i. Even though Shi’i Iraqis are now more proportionately represented in government and other sectors, however, Sunni and Shi’i Iraqis alike expressed mistrust of U.S. intentions. None of the Iraqis interviewed for this article seemed to feel that their lives had improved since the U.S. invaded in 2003.

“U.S. forces entered Iraq six years ago and have not improved my life—ever.”

Mohsen Ali, 50, is a former teacher in Baghdad who now calls the city’s streets home.

“Saddam Hussain executed my two sons in 2000 after they refused to join the Ba’ath party. They cursed the party and said bad things about it in public, so Saddam executed them,” he explains. “After their death, my wife left me. Now I’m homeless. I sleep in the streets and public squares every day and ask people to help me, so I can live a normal life. This was my life prior to—and since—the arrival of U.S. forces.”

Ali, a Shi’i Iraqi, believed his life would improve greatly after the fall of Hussain’s regime. “I thought it would be possible to live in a house, even get a small stipend of aid from the new Iraqi government or from the Americans,” he says, “but the truth is that my life has not changed. President Bush, before he entered Baghdad in 2003, promised the Iraqi people a better life and a better future.”

That future now seems uncertain.

“I do not believe the U.S. troops will get out of Iraq at all,” says Mazen Shojaa, 33, “because the goal of America is to control the wealth of Iraq. The U.S. claims that it will leave in 2011, but this is merely an anesthetic for the Iraqi people. They are lying to themselves and the world.”

Shojaa, a Sunni from the area of Ghazaliya, west of Baghdad, was unhappy with the entry of U.S. troops into Iraq, because he opposed the country’s rule by a foreign force that cared nothing about his people.

“Prior to the occupation,” he recalls, “we had a good and normal life, despite some difficulties brought on by the economic blockade imposed by America, and we had freedom, safety and stability.”

Shojaa says he now fears for his life every day. While he once hoped that U.S. troops would leave soon, with the emergence of Iranian intervention in Iraq and what he sees as the hegemony of some of Iraq’s ruling parties, Shojaa has changed his mind. He now hopes U.S. troops will stay to help Iraqis ward off Iranian influence and interference.

Jamal al-Din Yassin, 56, a grocer from the Karrada district in east Baghdad, disagrees that the U.S. will remain in Iraq past the SOFA deadline, and feels more hopeful about Iraq’s future.

“[They will leave] because the U.S. has suffered much from the occupation of Iraq and has had many of its soldiers killed and wounded,” he argues.

Like his fellow Shi’i Mohsen Ali, Yassin’s life before the occupation was difficult.

“I was bitter and there was a lot of poverty,” he says. “We thought the arrival of U.S. troops could change the reality of the situation, but now I’m afraid for myself and my family because of the loss of security and stability in Iraq.”

Unlike Shojaa, however, Yassin believes Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has made great strides in rebuilding and strengthening Iraq’s security forces, enabling them to take a leadership role in establishing stability in their country.

“I feel that the exit of U.S. troops will not affect the security on the ground much,” he explains, “because Iraq in two years will be far more powerful than it is now.”

Muhammad Ali Ghani, 36, a Shi’i schoolteacher from Sadr City, also had high hopes for what the U.S. troops could do for Iraq, but disagrees that al-Maliki’s government is ready to take over.

“We were pleased with the entry of U.S. troops in Iraq, because we thought America would save Iraq from the dictatorship and abuses of Saddam,” says Ghani. “I was one of the first ones running to welcome the U.S. forces.”

But it soon became apparent that the U.S. didn’t know much about occupying a country, he continues, and the mistakes made in disbanding the Iraqi security forces opened the door to lawlessness, benefitting al-Qaeda and other militia groups.

“The loss of security in Iraq and the spread of corruption in the country and the decline of industry and agriculture all made me feel scared in Iraq,” Ghani says. “I don’t know where to go or what to expect in the future. The Iraqi government’s performance so far is weak. If Iraq doesn’t help itself with national political reconciliation, and by building strong army intelligence and security forces that can function on their own when the U.S. leaves, it could lead to renewed instability. Iraq may disintegrate and become subject to the small neighboring countries.”

Samah Moueen, 48, a Shi’i widow from the new Baghdad district, lost her husband in the Iraq/Iran war. She supports her two daughters by working as a cleaner in a small school in east Baghdad.

In Moueen’s opinion, “It would be very difficult for the U.S. troops to leave Iraq; I think they will stay more than a hundred years. American policy will not change with the Democrats in power. It won’t change no matter what the circumstances. The Americans have been planning to occupy Iraq for more than 40 years. They waited patiently for Iraq to be weak so they could have control over oil resources. America obtained the Iraqi cake and the victim is the Iraqi people, who have suffered the terrorism of al-Qaeda and the militias because of the U.S. occupation.

“I imagine that Iraq will be a real battlefield when the U.S. troops leave, because it doesn’t currently have security forces that can take control,” she worries. “And we also have Iran, which carries a significant weight. Its influence is strong and plays a very negative role in Iraq. So, I hope that the U.S. troops do not leave in 2011. The worst thing for women in Iraq would be if the party that took control was from Iran, or the Islamic government in Iraq.”

As for Mohsen Ali, he says he will continue to hope for the best.

“When the U.S. troops leave Iraq, I hope to find a safe place to live away from the fighting, because I expect that there will be a very bloody sectarian war,” he says. “I will stay sleeping on the streets for the rest of my life, and I have to find a street where I can sleep better. I dream for a good future, either by the Americans or the Iraqi government.”

As Temperatures Rise, Iraq Faces Continued Power Outtages

By Sarah Price and Rawsam Latif
June 12, 2009 (The Palestine Telegraph)


Yasser Rahman extends wires from a large generator in a neighborhood to surrounding homes, whose families, without his help, would spend a lot of time in the dark.

"The work is very serious but we have to work to live," he says. There are few job opportunities in Iraq right now, he explains, and even fewer for those, like him, who lack a degree. So, he takes the work he can get - powering homes and government buildings by extending wires from large generators to the waiting buildings. In addition to extending power from his own generator to houses and government buildings in the area, he also extends power lines from other districts. But it is a rigged operation, and things could turn dangerous for him at any time during the process.

"I know that this work may put my life in danger," he says, "but it's better than being out of work."

With the continuing problem of dropped electrical service in both the public and private sectors, there is an increasing demand for those with Yasser's talents. The labor sector in Iraq is growing jobs and businesses associated with this crucial occupation. Workers earn an average of $50 a month per home for their effort.

"The work I am doing is a kind of humanitarian service to the citizens," says generator owner Omar Rafed Maamuri, who has been unable to get a government job for the past five years. This work, he says, allows him to provide for his family, while making life a bit easier for his fellow Iraqis, who are displeased with the government's lack of service and solutions to the ongoing electricity crisis, and the fact that the citizens have had to take this job on themselves. But the generators are no long-term solution, he says. "They are expensive, unreliable, and use a lot of fuel."

"It's not a process that is fully adequate, but it is better than nothing, with the scarcity of the national power supply," says Abu Ala Al-Zubaidi, 44, from the Noaab Zbbat neighborhood, east of Baghdad. It is not a perfect solution, he explains, but it at least allows them to run a fan and have cold water in the hot summers.

"The Iraqi government must work hard to repair the electrical energy and rehabilitate the dilapidated infrastructure," he says. "We rent electricity from those big generators and we spend so much money. When the summer comes, it's hell for us. Iraqis can't continue to cope with these large and frequent interruptions of power."

However, according to Iraq's Aswat al-Iraq news agency, an official from the Ministry of Electricity announced on June 10 that electricity production has increased by 25% in 2009, and that "this year's production will provide two-thirds of the country's electricity needs... A fair distribution will supply all citizens with electricity for 12 hours a day."

But according to Sultan Aziz, Director of the Media Office of the Ministry of Electricity, the efforts are marred by a lack of funding by the prime minister. The ministry has contracts in place with companies that would facilitate providing the services, but they are awaiting funding from the prime minister towards the signing of the contracts.

There is also a dispute over the division of duties. "We bear the burden of providing fuel for power plants, but this work is the prerogative of the Ministry of Oil, and we need to protect the power lines, and that is the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Interior, not us," says Aziz. "The road has been difficult for the Ministry of Electricity of Iraq to keep the electric system alive, but we are optimistic about a prosperous future."

In the meantime, Iraqis face months of temperatures expected to be upward of 110 degrees, and in some areas of the country, no more than an hour of electricity a day.