On the front lines of Gaza's war 2.0

With an Israeli ban in force on media entering Gaza, the main source of information is a resilient army of citizen journalists…

With an Israeli ban in force on media entering Gaza, the main source of information is a resilient army of citizen journalists with an arsenal of mobile phones, blogs and digital media, writes Mary Fitzgerald, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

ON MONDAY, SAMEH Akram Habeeb sat down to write his latest blog post. The 23-year-old Gazan has been writing regular reports of the death and destruction unfolding around him since Israel began its military assault in the last week of December. He began Monday's entry with a warning to his readers: "I migt [sic] stop reporting either if I die or I flee my home. Shells rain down beside my house now. Pray for me . . . Pray for Me . . . "

Two days later Sameh explained how he managed to blog updates despite erratic power supplies: "I go around four kilometres a day in this cruel war where I charge my laptop battery to be able to send this work! This is very risky since shells rain down and drones hover over me! I will keep this up."

Sameh's blog is one of a handful providing a small window into the suffering of Gaza's civilian population as Israel's military forces continue to pummel the territory. Because Israeli authorities have prevented foreign journalists from entering and reporting from Gaza - and had done so weeks before the offensive began - the world has relied on the few reporters already based there, most notably from Al Jazeera, and eyewitness accounts from humanitarian personnel and a tiny army of citizen journalists to get some measure of the extent of the crisis.

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In their efforts to get their stories out, some Gazans have turned to the web, posting grainy video footage on YouTube, and the Arab equivalent Ikbis; uploading photographs on picture-sharing website Flickr or sending images of bloodshed and mayhem across the Arab world through group e-mails; making podcasts; and sending abbreviated updates on Twitter, a micro-blogging tool that allows users to send messages containing up to 140 characters.

In one podcast, Ramzy, a young teacher in Gaza, accuses both Israel and Hamas of refusing to call a ceasefire out of stubbornness. "This stubbornness will lead to more Palestinian casualties and deaths in Gaza. We are the big losers here, the Palestinian people, not Hamas or Israel. If the attacks continue, more civilians will lose their lives and these civilians are dying for nothing."

Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian from Gaza who is now living in the US, uses her blog to movingly describe the experiences of her parents in Gaza, which she hears about through telephone and Skype conversations with her father, Moussa, a retired doctor. In turn, Laila has been updating her parents on media reports from the outside.

"I call them every hour; sometimes every few minutes when I see renewed bombardment on my television," Laila writes. "Sometimes he calls me for assurance: 'What's going on? What's going on?' he repeats in a weary, hypnotic tone. 'It just felt like they bombed our street from the inside out. I can't see anything. I don't know what's happening. What's the news saying?' he asks frantically, desperate for any morsel of information that can make sense of the terror being wrought upon them."

Some foreigners based in Gaza are also blogging their experiences of Israel's military assault. Eva Bartlett, a Canadian activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), posted gruesome photographs of an injured man being transported to hospital. "Death fills the air, the streets in Gaza, and I cannot stress that this is no exaggeration," she writes.

But for all the attempts at citizen journalism, the flow of information from Gaza has been extremely limited. For someone like Ibrahim Nateel, whose wife Suha and four children, including Irish-born Basil, are in Gaza, it just adds to the sense of helplessness. He watches Al Jazeera and the BBC at home in London and reads Arab websites, and can sometimes receive text messages from Gaza, but it's still not enough. "It's very difficult to get proper information and sometimes impossible," Nateel says. "It's very worrying not knowing what is really going on in Gaza when you have family stuck there like I do."

ISRAELIS HAVE ALSO taken to the web to tell their side of the story. Those living in towns hit by rockets launched from Gaza recount their experiences on several video-sharing sites and blogs. "The siren whipped me out of bed, cottonheaded, three times in the past 10 hours," writes Sarah, a blogger in Be'er Sheva. "The booms followed, faithfully. My kids are used to it. My nerves are shot."

Israel, while restricting foreign media access to Gaza, is no doubt mindful of the battering its public relations endured as a result of the 2006 war in Lebanon that left more than 1,000 Lebanese dead, and has undertaken a massive propaganda drive that makes full use of online tools. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has set up its own channel on YouTube showing what it says are Israeli air strikes on Gaza; the foreign ministry has launched several blogs to disseminate its point of view; and the Israeli consulate in New York has set up a Twitter account to provide updates and conduct virtual news conferences with the public. One blogger has dubbed Israel's efforts "War 2.0" - noting that it is the first time social media has been used as a major weapon in the "people's war" of spin and propaganda.

"The new media and the blogosphere form a whole new battlefield in the war for world opinion," IDF press spokesperson Major Avital Leibovich said last week. "It is vital Israel fights on this front as well."

The Israeli authorities' Twitter experiment, perhaps not surprisingly, comes across as a little odd (see panel). "The Israeli government is trying to explain a conflict that people write books about, a conflict that newspaper writers struggle to explain in 2,000 words, in 140 characters at a time," noted bemused MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow.

The IDF's Youtube channel was initially deluged with complaints and objections, prompting YouTube to pull four of the most popular videos. The clips were later reposted, however, and many on the site draw tens of thousands of viewers. One video showing what the IDF says is a strike on a Qassam rocket launcher has been viewed more than 339,000 times.

The clips are being closely scrutinised. B'Tselem, a prominent Israeli human-rights group, has raised questions over one video that shows an air strike on a group of Gazans loading a truck with cylindrical items. Israel claims that the clip shows "terror operatives" loading missiles to fire at Israel. The owner of the truck, however, claims those who died were members of his family who were taking gas canisters from his welding shop when the bombing occurred.

As the propaganda battle rages online, Israeli authorities continue to turn back reporters at the border with Gaza - despite the Israeli Supreme Court's recent ruling against the two-month-old ban on foreign journalists entering the territory.

Daniel Seaman, director of Israel's government press office, remains unmoved by the torrent of complaints from international media outlets, telling the New York Times this week: "Any journalist who enters Gaza becomes a fig leaf and front for the Hamas terror organization, and I see no reason why we should help that."

But, as some dissenting Israeli voices have pointed out, with almost 800 Palestinians estimated dead and no end in sight despite international diplomatic efforts, the battle for world opinion might already be lost.

ISRAEL ONLINE TEXT MESSAGE DEBATE

A sample of some of the exchanges during an Israeli consulate QA session on Twitter

Question from peoplesworld:40 years of military confrontation hasn't brought security to Israel, why is this different?

Answer from israelconsulate:We hav 2 prtct R ctzens 2, only way fwd through neogtiations, left Gaza in 05. y Hamas launch missiles not peace?

EhsanAhmad:you didn't get my point that Hamas is an elected govt and if u keep attacking them they got right to attack you

Israelconsulate:if hamas's goal were 2 btr the lives of its cit. they wouldn't target IL. they would invest in edu/hlth not in bombs

Carrotderek:On what conditions would Israel consider a ceasefire?

Israelconsulate:CF must ensure no more rockets on IL+ no arms smuggling. btw crossings for Human Aid r open and trucks are entering

Backlotops:1 side has to stop. Why continue what hasn't worked (mass arial/grnd retaliation)? Arab Peace Initiative?

Israelconsulate:we R pro nego. crntly tlks r held w the PA + tlks on the 2 state soln. we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live.