Fearless in Gaza
WITH most of the international media excluded from Gaza during the three-week Israeli assault, a locally based TV news agency’s material supplied bulletins around the world. JIM BOUMELHA reports on the courageous work of the journalists of Ramattan TV
“OVER THERE ... phosphorous bomb!” People run for their lives, but not TV journalists and cameramen. The first reflex of the Ramattan crews in Gaza, during the bombardment over the new year, was to drive towards the blast.
Often they were the first to arrive, talk to the survivors and check the casualties, long before medical staff. With over 100 full-time staff working in Gaza – half of them living and sleeping in the studios – the Palestinian TV news agency became for those three weeks “the eyes and ears of the world”.
Ramattan had 18 cameras and crews deployed throughout the Gaza Strip and 16 broadcast points permanently set up for live stand-ups. The decision by the Israeli military to block foreign media from entering Gaza backfired; they had not counted on the courage and perseverance of the Ramattan journalists who aired live to the world the most watched story of the year. The London-based Arabic daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat called Ramattan the “local star in the skies of Arab satellite communications”.
The logo of Ramattan which means a pair of deer in Arabic, symbolizing Gaza and the West Bank – appeared in the corner of TV screens showing news from war-torn Gaza around the world. The agency supplied live feeds not just to Arabic networks but to all the American ones: CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox; to the BBC, ITN and Sky; to European networks – and even to Israel. With their own crews kept out, the Israeli channels had no choice, and one channel actually offered a live Ramattan feed to Israelis on their mobile phones.
Ramattan was founded as a production studio in the centre of Gaza with one television camera in 1998 by Qassem Ali al-Kafarna, a Palestinian-American. Today it occupies three floors of an office block, has producers in Rafah on the Egyptian side and a permanent uplink facility at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, as well as offices in Khan Younis.
As the conflict appeared imminent Ramattan staff prepared themselves – despite the long-running siege of Gaza – by using the Rafah crossing with Egypt to stockpile tapes, food, diesel and generators.
Some of the staff had experience of the Israeli invasion of the West Bank in 2002, when Ramattan sheltered more than 40 international journalists in its offices for 50 days. For their journalists it was a baptism of fire as they learned to work together and take care of each other.
Qassem Ali al-Kafarna explained the complicated logistics of working under the Israeli blitz: “We cooked and served over 200 hot meals to staff, clients, families and their children every day. All of our clients – the local and international TV, print and radio journalists, humanitarian aid officials and even the civilian population – relied on us at some point, some seeking shelter with us when their homes were hit.
“On several occasions, Ramattan was the only building with electricity in the neighbourhood. The neighbours came to view us as their beacon of hope in defiance of shortages throughout the war.”
THE WAR on Gaza made Ramattan a success story. Its journalists say that their success is largely due to the fact that they are Gazans. “Some of us of us have worked for the western media,” says Qassem Ali al-Kafarna, “but we dreamed of creating an alternative news agency to Reuters and APTN that would give a new perspective on the Arab world. Now we have offices in many Arab countries but wherever we go our roots will always lie in Gaza.”
He is chair of the board – and hails from Gaza himself – and stresses that Ramattan is not just a service provider. “This is the product of ten years’ investment in people,” he says. “Most of our staff have never worked for any other news operation. They have trained with us as cameramen, sound engineers, producers, editors and technicians and are committed and loyal professionals.”
Sakher Abu Al Aoun, the Palestinian Journalists’ Union representative in Gaza, sees the success of the journalists in the personal risks they took every time they set out to take pictures – risks that international network crews, had they been present, may have been unwilling or unable to take. “And yet they had no armoured vehicles or flak jackets as these were prohibited by the Israelis to be taken into the Gaza Strip, ” he says.
Many journalists suffered the loss or injury of family members, some tragically discovering it while covering the aftermath of a bombing.
They saw friends, colleagues and neighbours suffering from devastating injuries while they filmed in the hospitals. One, Raed Al Kafarna, saw two of his cousins dead while he was filming a bombing site. Another, Ashraf Ali, had his family home bulldozed by the Israeli army while he was working.
But despite being at the centre of the story, the journalists insist they made no compromise regarding their neutral and independent status. The proof, they say, was that networks from all sides used their images.
Walking the tightrope between political interests – Israel and Hamas, or Fatah and Hamas – Ramattan journalists are jealous of their independence. The Israelis do not give them official recognition or accreditation, which makes them targets, just like all other Gaza civilians.
Qassem Ali al-Kafarna praises its journalists’ pride in their work despite the fact that he cannot provide them with the rights and privileges that international journalists expect to receive in time of war. “The secret of our success is that we believe in what we do, we believe in one another and we believe in the importance of independent media.”