January 28, 2009

One reporter’s heroism

By: AF Editors

Ethan Bronner of the NYT writes:

Because Israel barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza until the war ended, The New York Times relied on my Palestinian colleague here, Taghreed el-Khodary, for on-the-ground coverage of the fighting.

We would speak several times a day as she cautiously went out. Her first stop was usually Shifa Hospital to get a sense of civilian casualties. Early in the war, at the hospital, she witnessed the murder of an alleged Israeli collaborator by Hamas gunmen. They shot him in the skull more or less in front of her. One of the gunmen told Taghreed that she should never mention what she saw to anyone. She told him there was not a chance she would stay silent, then made some calls to find out about other such events and sent me the information, which we published the next day.

This incident touches on the concern I raised yesterday, regarding the reliability of any information provided to Western journalists by the Hamas-controlled population. Violent intimidation may not have silenced a reporter from the NY Times, but how many Gazans would take a similar risk to publicize similar information? If I were in that situation, and Hamas gunmen threatened to kill members of my family if I spoke up, I would say nothing.