A war on Gaza and a war on my blog!

Sameh A. Habeeb

I'm a 23-years-old Palestinian out of one-million-and-a-half. I'm not so different from the residents of my Gaza Strip. I eat, drink and live the way they do. Their happiness is mine while their suffering is for sure mine. I finished my Bachelor degree two years ago in English language and Literature.

But I didn't wait to end my study to move and work. While I was in the second year I started to be a volunteer then I worked for Ramttan News Agency for one year in the media and news field which I loved so much. One year before I graduated, in 2006, I start to work for an aid organization where I work with children and orphans till this moment.

In 2007, I turned to work in activism and Media for Palestine because I knew it is time to help my people who live under the Israeli occupation. I launched a yahoo group called action for Palestine in then a blog called "GazaToday" the untold story (www.gazatoday.blogspot.com) by the start of 2008, I have intensified my work on my blog and camera. I wrote tens of stories about the people under siege. I was handling all work in my free time at night as in the daylight I work with orphans.

Most of stories were about humanitarian conditions for people who were not having power nor fuel nor gas nor many basics for normal life. I travelled to Italy where I have done around 20 conferences and lobbying for Palestine mid of 2008. I was invited to France, Strasbourg to deliver a speech in EU parliament but I could not get a visa.

With this recent War my life turned upside down. I became sleepless in which I only sleep for three to four hours a day. Eighteen days ago, the war started and a war against my mind and blog as well! I was sad and mad, How will I update my blog? How I will send news out? How I will take photos in such war and critical time. Many questions I was able to answer and overcome all obstacles. Through my determination and strong will. I started to dedicate my time for my blog. I spend a day under war like the following:

I get up early at 8 am where I start listening to the radio stations and collect news. I authenticate every single story and news I hear from around 4 radio stations here. Then, I start to compare each radio and what it says about every single action which takes much time from me. Then, I call some journalists who I worked with before to know more news and to be sure about the accuracy of news. I call medical sources at Health sector and public relation offices to get the exact number of victims a day. In mid day, I stop doing that I ask my sisters, Maali and Samah(my family totally supports me to go on) to follow up the news in radio.

At that time, I hold my camera and laptop and go outside for two key reasons. One, is to recharge the laptop of my battery which lasts daily for two hours and the second is to take more photos. I go in many areas inside Gaza City even for three kilometers to seek power for my battery. I get some power through generators' in my friends' houses. Some other times, I pay around $5 to get my battery charged from a man in my quarter who ironically changed his shop from being a barber into a man who has a generator and his mission is only to charge batteries of my mobiles!

After that, I go to my house before the evening because it gets dangerous in the night as Israeli drones and military forces start to fire anything movable at night. My third step against the War on my Blog wass how to translate and send news quickly.

I start translating the news after making sure of its accuracy and I write some lines about the general conditions that Gaza was having in the daylight this takes around one hour from the battery. Then, I try to take on another problem: "How to put the news on the internet"

Before I was using LAN which is a network of a very fast internet. But, this system collapsed due to power blackout so I turned to use the dial up connection which is very slow and bad one. I open it and quickly put news on my on my Blog, Facebook and some other websites that I have accounts in…The moments I do these things are very critical because the more time I loose from the battery the more my heart strongly beats up! Then, I open my five emails in consequence and send emails to around five lists of journalists each is of five hundred persons. I finish doing that and my battery dies but I get smile at the end of the day for that job I was able to carry out. The smile comes out of my face because it is against sends the crying and screams of people I see on the hospitals and those I took photos for them in this cruel war.

Working in Gaza as a journalist is completely crazy since you would have to send your work by nothing, no internet, no power and no even any type of easy communication. I believe I have become crazy in order to send the suffering of my people since some outsider journalists are biased towards Israel. I try always to be neutral in such hard conditions.

One another job I do beside the above ones is speaking to Media outlets. I get tens of calls on my landline which I put it on the news feed of my daily updates on Gaza War. I spoke to the CNN, BBC, Sky News, Channal 4 in U.K., Austrian TV, Brazilian TV and tens of TVs and radio stations especially in the USA. Many radios started to present me on daily basis as a correspondent here in Gaza and I do this for Free in order to tell the people abroad about what's going on. I feel that my house turned to be a News Agency from the tens of interviews and emails I get.

I was even threatened from Unknown persons, they wanted me to give up and stop blogging and sending news outside. Yet, I will never stop doing this holy mission of sending true news outside despite it is risky for me and my family. I reckon maybe some Israeli radicals who did this because I used to get many bad emails from them.

One thing I need not to forget which is how I do that? I do that while I have no enough water bread and basics of life. I do that while bombs and rockets hit my area even my house was personally hit by shrapnel of rockets and I put photos in my picassa about that. My cousins house was shelled also but this will not make me stop. I will keep it up and at this moment shells rain down in my area which is the hottest in Gaza, called Toffah area based East of Gaza City.


* Written for Al ARABIYA. Sameh Habeeb is a freelance photojournalist.