Our Honest Eye for Gaza

This year, Palestinian journalists deserve to win every award that exists for courageous journalism

Gaza 8.54pm

I’m losing at least 500 readers in substack, 16 followers in instagram, 27 friends in facebook, because keep posting about Palestine. But worth it. I promise to keep posting, echoing every news from Gaza by Gazans.

Bisan Owda, or wizard_bisan1, as her 2.5 million followers in Instagram know her, was a filmmaker before the assault on Gaza began. Maybe she’s the complete access-social media in entire Gazans — [maybe] related about her profession as filmmaker - before war.

62 Gazan - Palestinian journalist + 3 Lebanese journalist killed by Israeli indiscriminate bombing

She also uses THREADS [19k FOLLOWERS, although a lot of Gazans who use THREADS mostly has a notification 14 - 15 weeks ago, or before war to use THREADS last time]. She also 3,777 followers in youtube channel —- of course the most related with filmmaker. Also, 499k followers in Bytedance - TikTok. Also facebook fanpage [around 3.7k followers]. Around 5pm Gaza today, she decides to join most useful social media, the most dynamic flow - information, X / Twitter, already 4,4k followers so far. Even Bisan has a Linkedin account [11 friends-connection].

DAY 48. 9 Hours ago. Facebook fanpage Wizard Bisan.

In a video from October 12, she offers footage of her prewar office. It looks like a typical millennial media workspace: camcorders, whiteboards, couches, a fluffy cat napping across a desk. She has discovered the office was bombed. “I know it’s not a suitable time to talk about places and homes because people are losing their lives,” she says in the video, her eyes welling. ‘‘People are being killed.” Even within Gaza, there’s a hierarchy of suffering.

Owda, 25, describes herself as a hakawatieh in her bio. A storyteller. Now, she is suddenly a journalist. In Gaza, the line between civilian and journalist seems irrelevant as neither is safe. In each of her videos, her long dark hair is pulled back, a mess of curls atop her head or behind her in a pouf of a ponytail. She wears braces, an assortment of loose-fitting T-shirts, and denim button-downs. Her live reports vary in tone. In a recent video, she calmly explains what Gaza even is, geographically speaking.

US Special Force ‘helping IDF’ on Genocide Gaza. At least stories in Tel Aviv Israel.

That same day, she fights back tears as she describes the lack of food and water. “We are dying because of hunger,” she says, shivering. Some of her videos are in Arabic, but most are in English. That way, from Gaza she can reach the previously unreachable — that is, the West. Every morning, I check my feed in the hopes of finding something from Bisan, Plestia, Motaz, etc. “I’m still alive,” she or he usually begins.

Alongside Owda on Instagram are 22-year-old Plestia ‘Bosbos’ Alaqad and 24-year-old Motaz Azaiza, both journalists livestreaming the war.

Motaz Azaiza and Plestia ‘Bosbos’ Alaqad

NEW YORK TIMES was cooperate with Plestia Alaqad and Nour Alsaqa about dire situation in Gaza, at least first-10 days after Oct 7th, 2023

Nearly 19,000 Gazans killed by Israeli indiscriminate bombing.

In a video from October 9, Alaqad shows us the view from her neighbor’s balcony. “There is no view,” she says, panning across hazy silhouettes of buildings through the dust. Her shoulder-length hair often blows in the wind created by explosions that you can hear in the background.

Fakher Taj, a Gazans grandma, named the turtle after Plestia, Plestia tells her, don’t change her name when I leave, the grandma says “I would never even dare” “We wrote her name on the wall, so they don’t forget her name is Plestia, named after me.” Witnessing Palestinians talk about their new friends or animals they’ve met under such terrible circumstances, you can really tell the joy and love they share for each other and their community and this is the life they should be living everyday, eating good food, playing with their pets, costing loved ones, safe in their homes and their community.

PLESTIA BOSBOS ALAQAD AND GRANDMA FAKHER TAJ

7 Hours ago, The Coalition for Women in Journalism decides to raise Plestia’s profile. Plestia is being forced into exile from Gaza to protect her family because of Israel's systematic targeting of journalists. I don’t know what is to be said that we have not said before. The Coalition choose Plestia after 38 hours before, Lebanese woman - journo Farah Omar [alongside Lebanese Cameraperson Rabih Me’mari] killed by Israel missile in Israel - Lebanon border [around 12.50pm Gaza - Tel Aviv - Beirut, Wednesday]. Farah still alive at least 17 hours before got hit by Israel missile. at least 17 hours ago stories her instagram].

Burial Ceremony for Farah Omar.

In Azaiza’s videos, he acknowledges the shame of filming his fellow Gazans during their most devastating moments. In a particularly haunting video, a little boy sits shaking in what appears to be a hospital, though no doctors are present. The camera pans to a boy next to him with a bandaged head and burn marks up and down his arms. The scene plays over and over in my mind.

GQ Middle East honours ⁦Motaz Azaiza as our Man Of The Year & in dedication for those whose fearlessness remains unmatched: Plestia Alaqad, Hind Khoudary, Wael Al-Dahdouh, Issam Abdallah, Shireen Abu Akleh & the countless names we know & ones we don’t”

“You are not alone.” I hope that’s how Owda, Alaqad, and Azaiza feel, less alone with each like. A Jewish friend in Brooklyn recently mentioned something Motaz had shared, referring to him on a first-name basis.

People in New York, feel as if they know them. Bisan, Plestia, Motaz are names and faces placed in a category of people who, until now, have been represented only as numbers or else wrapped in keffiyehs, their faces barely visible. That Plestia and Bisan don’t wear hijabs is worth noting. Almost all of the mainstream-media images of women from Gaza include headscarves.

Gazans since childhood loving puppies, dog or cat, not guns or riffle or kalashnikov.

Israel kids.

The fact that these women look like us, look like me, a Muslim Palestinian, makes them easier to identify with. We come to hold the same expectations for them as we do for ourselves, express the same outrage at the injustice facing them as we would if faced with the same.

Deep Hatred inside White House, in decades, about Palestine

Western audiences watch their coverage in the form of “news.” We in the diaspora are somewhere in the middle. To us, news is too distant a term. We bear witness while bearing witness to the witnessing of others. We notice who’s saying and doing what, who has remained silent. In fits of frustration, I have unfollowed friends who have continued to post as though no war were happening.

Deep Hatred inside White House, in decades, about Palestine

We notice who’s sharing, who’s protesting, whose names are on the letters demanding a cease-fire, which petition. I’ve applied an irrational logic. I’ve assessed their pro-Palestinian-ness by how early into the assault they reached out (interestingly, almost all of the early round were Jewish friends). By now, I figure, everyone should be rallying against this, no matter which side of the issue they’re on. I have witnessed childhood friends, friends made before identity and politics entered our consciousness, finally acknowledge Palestinian suffering. “Thank you for sharing this,” they say. I have witnessed friends who thought the issue was complicated realize it isn’t.

Since the assault began, I’ve spent my days yelling, crying, sharing, fundraising, and continuing on as normal. Bouts of activism interspersed with the daily life of a working mother in Brooklyn. I’ve taught my writing classes as usual without once mentioning Palestine. I’ve walked by the doxing vans and tried to shake off my disgust before entering the classroom. I’ve read at fundraisers and found my voice shaking, eyes burning, even though I’d chosen to read something with levity. Pain in writing can be hilarious, the author Geoff Dyer once told me. As a Palestinian, I’ve held on to that. I’ve gone to action-oriented meetings to organize. I’ve also gone to a dog Halloween-costume contest with my wife and our 1-year-old daughter. I’ve taken her to Tunes for Tykes. That I can grieve and protest, attend vigils and fundraisers, and still plan a birthday party for my daughter is a duality that is impossible to sit with. “Everything normal right now is obscene,” I heard Israeli journalist Amira Hass say early on in the war, and it’s true. Even sitting down to articulate this moment feels obscene.

As Palestinians in the diaspora, many of us have tried to use our position of straddling two worlds to communicate across cultural lines. That’s what brought me to writing in the first place — first to journalism, then to essays and fiction, where I could subversively get people to identify with characters who shared the same woes but happened to be Palestinian. Now, finally, those inside have a platform. They are the real-life characters. This time, the words aren’t mine to speak.

“Reporting and posting about what’s happening in Gaza, Palestine feels pointless,” Plestia writes on day 37, having regained access to her account after two days without it. “It feels like I’m posting movie scenes for people to watch, and whenever they get bored they watch something else.” It’s a good point, one that instills shame. At what stage do we become voyeurs? Are people just watching and not witnessing? To watch is to consume; to witness is to acknowledge, to bestow some degree of legitimacy. But what does it do to see it? Is empathy ever enough?

“Compassion is an unstable emotion,” Susan Sontag wrote. “It needs to be translated into action, or it withers.” Earlier, I went to share a post and stopped myself. I thought of Motaz’s apology, his shame at filming Gazans in their worst moments. Will a picture of a girl who has lost 60 family members and the use of her legs inspire only empathy? Will it change anything, or will the bombing just continue, the number of orphans and murdered doctors keep rising?

A makeshift birthday party atop the rubble or in aisle of emergency room hospital. Laughter in the long lines of exodus.

Gaza literally like Dreden 1945

Gaza has long been called an open-air prison, a description I bristle at despite its fully land- and sea-locked status. Its people are not criminals, and to call it a prison is to suggest they deserve what they get. They lead big lives in spite of confinement. Before the war, each of them had a life that, while difficult and dehumanizing, contained joy.

In a video from October 4, days before the war began, Bisan is by the beach, upbeat bistro music playing in the background. There is footage of her riding a Jeep through the desert, of Motaz dancing at a graduation, of Plestia sitting beside an electric fireplace in Gaza City, smiling.

I know a lot of high-ranking media, such as New York Times, Guardian, Anadolu, BILD, Spiegel, Financial Times, Strait Times, Washington Post etc subscribed my substack. Plestia ‘Bosbos’ Alaqad ready to be your Stringer inside Gaza under bombing by Israel. Plestiaa2011@gmail.com

Toddler with Plestia, before war, living in Northern Gaza and they evacuated to Southern Gaza. Since Friday, Oct 13, when Israel announced to every Gazans from northern move to southern, more than 5,000 killed in southern, not counting barbaric bombing in northern Gaza. Northern Gaza is being depopulated, while even residents in the south are ordered to evacuate as the israelis implement their ethnic cleansing. Refugee literally fulfilled Israel warning, and still killed with barbaric bombing by Israel. Documentation by Plestia Alaqad

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