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.