Prevented from revealing the truth in Gaza

Reporting from Rafah, Egypt
SHAHANAAZ HABIB (THE STAR MALAYSIA)

GAZA is a very difficult conflict to cover because journalists are basically shut out and banned from entering the area.

Both Israel and Egypt will not let newsmen into Gaza, and the stories are being told from across the border.

F-16 jets can clearly be seen over the skies of this border town. Just as clearly seen are the bombs they drop and plumes of black smoke a few kilometres – sometimes just a few hundred metres – away when they hit the ground.

The impact on this side of Rafah, on the Egyptian border where most journalists are, is sometimes so powerful that it shatters building windows.

One can only imagine the damage the countless bombs are doing to the 1.5 million people in Gaza.

In Rafah, the border crossing comprises two gates, and Egyptian authorities allow journalists with press passes to enter through the first gate. But they hold onto the passports, without which journalists cannot enter Palestine.

Reporters are allowed to go right up to the second gate, which is only 50m from the Palestinian entrance.

One gets to see aid being brought in and transferred in trucks (slowly, but it is getting in), and a few Palestinian ambulances bringing the injured who are then transferred to Egyptian ambulances and sent to hospital.

Those who get too close to the second gate are chased away by the guards.

It is no better on the Israeli side.

“Israel does not want journalists in so it can carry out its attacks on the people in Gaza with impunity,” said David Hammerstein from the European Parliament. “But fire a rocket into Israel and people get killed, and you can bet it will have the whole international press reporting on it.”

It is frustrating for journalists who are supposed to be the eyes and ears of the world to be in a position where they can only stand on the outside and not be able to see what is going on inside.

Doctors, medical staff and aid workers with proper documentation and approval are allowed into Gaza, though. When they come out or injured Palestinians manage to make it out, the journalists pounce on them, hungry to find out what is going on inside – what they saw, heard and how the people were coping.

And what they are telling is chilling.

A group of Norwegian doctors who came out on Sunday had some journalists in tears when they gave their account of how bad the situation was and the horrific injuries they were seeing.

The photos they took were depressing and unbelievable.

A tired Palestinian nurse, Ahmad Muhammad Kitchta, who was in one of the Palestinian ambulances bringing the injured out, looked exhausted.

“No place is safe. Israel is not destroying Hamas. It is destroying the people. Many children have died from injuries and lack of food,” said the father of 12.

Those who want to get out of Gaza, which is only 45km long and six to 12km wide, cannot do so because the border on both sides is closed. They are essentially trapped. In a hellish place.

- The Star Malaysia