Journalist Maha Hussaini
We go to Gaza to speak with Palestinian journalist Maha
Hussaini after the International Women’s Media Foundation came under fire for
rescinding its Courage in Journalism Award to her following a smear campaign.
Hussaini is an award-winning journalist and human rights advocate who has
extensively documented Israel’s war on Gaza since October, including reporting
on the mass displacement of Palestinians while being repeatedly displaced
herself. “This is not the first time, by the way, that I have been subjected to
such smear campaigns,” says Hussaini, who recounts a career spent defending her
work against attacks and intimidations from Israel and its supporters. Hussaini
speaks to us from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and reports on dire conditions
there. “The war waged on the Gaza Strip is not a war against particular armed
factions, but against the entire population of 2.3 million residents,” Hussaini
says.
The International Women’s Media Foundation is under fire
for rescinding its Courage in Journalism Award to the Gaza-based Palestinian
journalist Maha Hussaini following a smear campaign led by the conservative
website Washington Free Beacon and false accusations against Hussaini of
antisemitism.
Maha Hussaini is an award-winning journalist, human
rights advocate, who has worked for several outlets, including the Middle East
Eye. One of her pieces published earlier this year uncovered Israeli field
executions of Palestinians in Gaza City. She’s also extensively reported on the
mass displacement of Palestinians across Gaza since October, including herself,
and the agonizing conditions faced by Palestinian mothers struggling to feed
their babies as Israel is accused of using starvation as a weapon of war. Maha
Hussaini herself has been repeatedly displaced. In April, she attempted to
return home in Gaza City as thousands of others risked their lives to head back
north.
Many around the world have expressed their solidarity and
support for Maha Hussaini, including the Marie Colvin Journalists’ Network,
which said in a statement, quote, “We are extremely disappointed that IWMF took
this decision, and we remain concerned for Maha’s safety. The Marie Colvin
Journalists’ Network believes in freedom of speech, and that journalists in
Gaza should have the same rights to express themselves as elsewhere in the
world,” they wrote. Marie Catherine Colvin was a U.S. journalist killed while
reporting on Syria’s war in 2012. She was reporting for British paper The
Sunday Times.
Maha Hussaini also responded to the IWMF in an op-ed
published in the Middle East Eye titled “You can take away my award but you
won’t take away my voice,” in which she wrote, quote, “I would not have won
this award if I had not been on the ground exposing flagrant Israeli violations
under perilous conditions, all while being systematically attacked by
supporters of the perpetrators. Winning a prize for 'courage' means being
subjected to attacks and choosing to continue your work regardless. Regrettably,
the very organisation that recognised these perilous conditions and awarded me
the prize chose to be uncourageous,” Hussaini wrote.
She’s joining us now from Gaza, from Deir al-Balah.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! We know there’s a big
delay in the broadcast sound. Maha Hussaini, can you share your response to
this controversy, though there is overwhelming support for you, as well, being
expressed by journalist organizations, and talk about what’s happening on the
ground in Gaza where you are?
MAHA HUSSAINI: Well, I’m now in Deir al-Balah,
particularly in Al-Aqsa, at the Al-Aqsa Hospital, where in the background there
are actually dozens of victims arriving in the ongoing Israeli bombing while
I’m speaking to you now.
My Courage in Journalism Award was rescinded for the very
reason that I have been awarded. It was rescinded for speaking up against these
violations or talking even as a Palestinian living under these conditions,
under occupation and under a strangling blockade, and being displaced several
times. Unfortunately, this is why we, as Palestinians, see the global media
outlets, the Western media outlets, can be seen as complicit in the silencing
of Palestinian journalists, because they always succumb to these pressures by
the Israeli occupation or the perpetrators, in general.
This is not the first time, by the way, that I have been
subjected to such smear campaigns and incitement campaigns. In 2020, I have won
also the Martin Adler Prize by the Rory Peck Trust. And following the awarding
of this prize, I was subjected to a large smear campaign by pro-Israelis on
social media calling on the Rory Peck Trust to withdraw their prize to me. But
this time, Rory Peck was courageous enough, and they did not succumb to this
pressure.
But, unfortunately, 24 hours after this very campaign was
launched on Wednesday, I woke up to the news that the IWMF has rescinded this
award, without even referring to me or without informing me. I knew of this
rescinding of this award on social media.
And this is why maybe Palestinian journalists are always
intimidated. Many, many journalists across Palestine sometimes do not continue
in this work because of the level of intimidation, not just physical attacks,
particularly the targeted killing of Palestinians. We’re talking about 150
Palestinian journalists who have been killed since the beginning of this attack
on Gaza. But this is not the only way Palestinians are targeted. There are many
kinds of targeting that Palestinian journalists have been subjected to since —
for decades. I have been working as a war reporter and journalist for around a
decade. And over the past decade, I have been subjected to many smear
campaigns, many attacks and many intimidations by both the Israeli occupation
and the supporters of the perpetrators.
It’s not only me. It’s not about me. It’s not about Maha
Hussaini. It’s about every Palestinian journalist working in the Palestinian
territory and in Palestine in general. Last month, for example, a colleague
journalist reported that he received a call from the Israeli army informing him
in Arabic that if he did not stop recording the violations on the ground, they
would kill him. And they hang up the phone. So, there are this systematic
campaign, these systematic attacks against Palestinians to silence them. And
this is why maybe we continue our work, because at the time when the
perpetrators of human rights violations do not want these evidence to be seen,
we have to continue reporting.
Maha, you’ve been repeatedly displaced by Israeli attacks
in Gaza and have brought your cat Tom with you from shelter to shelter. In
April, you shared a photo of Tom on social media with the words, quote, “Post
fasting coffee with Tom on a window overlooking our displacement neighborhood
in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.. in the background is total darkness
broken only by the dim glow of a mosque where a generator is run during prayer
times.”
You’ve also written about Israeli executions of
Palestinians. In December, you wrote about a piece describing Israeli mass
executions in Gaza City. You wrote, quote, “For three days, Moemen Raed
al-Khaldi lay wounded and motionless between the corpses of his killed family
members, pretending to be dead to protect himself from being shot by Israeli
soldiers. On 21 December, Israeli soldiers broke into the house where the
Khaldi family had taken refuge in northern Gaza and, in mere minutes, they shot
everyone present. The soldiers left the house thinking they had killed them
all, only Moemen remained alive, bleeding for days before the neighbours found
him and took him to hospital.” Can you explain this video and how the Israeli
military responded?
MAHA HUSSAINI: Yes. This is actually one of the reports
that were used in South Africa’s case against Israel, accusing it of committing
genocide in the Gaza Strip. This is one of the cases, one of the dozens of
cases or hundreds of cases of field executions against Palestinian civilians in
the Gaza Strip. And this is why we say that the war waged on the Gaza Strip is
not a war against particular armed factions, but against the entire population
of 2.3 million residents.
And this is why maybe I think that Israel attempts to
impose a blackout on the entire of the Gaza Strip and to ban international
journalists and international inquiry crews from entering to investigate these
crimes and these human rights violations. As I said, this is one of the cases I
have reported on. I have reported on hundreds of cases, actually, of not just
field execution, but also use of civilians as human shields, assaults against
women, sexual assaults against women and men, as well. So, yes, we are talking
about a wide range, scale of violations against Palestinian civilians. And
that’s why Israel has been attempting, since the beginning of this attack, of
imposing several blackouts on the Gaza Strip.
And can you describe what you wrote about just in the
last week, starvation particularly in northern Gaza?
MAHA HUSSAINI: Yeah. Actually, I’ve been in touch with
many people in northern Gaza. I am now in the central Gaza Strip. I have
evacuated my home in northern Gaza, in Gaza City particularly, on the 13th of
October. I have been forcibly displaced, actually, after my home — also my home
was bombed back in October or in November. But I’m still in touch with people
there in the north, who reported that they cannot find anything to eat. My
friend, for example, in the north of Gaza City says that she cannot find anything
to feed her toddler, who is actually in need, in severe need, of milk, of food,
of nutrition. And he is now suffering malnutrition due to the severe starvation
imposed by Israel.
Actually, Israel is imposing a collective punishment on
the civilian population in the north of Gaza Strip. As you know, on the 13th of
October, Israel issued forced evacuation orders to the residents in the whole
of Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip. Those who did not comply with these
forced orders are now facing a collective punishment by Israel for not
complying with these orders. And while Israel allows, under severe
restrictions, the goods and the aid to enter the southern and the central parts
of the Gaza Strip, it completely bans any kind of food and any kind of aid into
the Gaza City, and we are talking about dozens of people who have died due to
malnutrition. Only last week alone, four Palestinian children have died due to
malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. We are now
talking about over 5,000 Palestinian children in the north of Gaza who are at
risk of dying due to malnutrition.
So, this is particularly an Israeli systematic tool of
war, which it has used to starve the Palestinian population and to push them to
come to the southern parts of the Gaza Strip. I have testimonies from people
there who reported to me that amid the starvation of the Gaza Strip and the
Gaza City in particular, the Israeli army, at checkpoints — when they cross the
checkpoints, the Israeli army and Israeli soldiers tell the residents that “If
you want to eat, go to the south.” So, this is like a kind of intimidation and
forced displacement tool for Palestinians, that if they want to really live,
they have to evacuate, to forcibly evacuate their homes and comply with Israeli
orders to go to the southern parts of the Gaza Strip.
And this is why I think that Israel is allowing aid into
the southern Gaza Strip. It’s not only for the mere, like, benefit of the
residents, because they have been bombing also residents who are allowed to get
some food here in the southern Gaza Strip, but I think that this is kind of
like —
