Colson Media. Hello, everyone, it's me James Today. I am back from my trip to Kurdistan and I'm talking today with Rania Hayat, a name that I've probably just but shered. But Ranier is the communications officer for the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate. And we're very, very lucky to have Ronnie talking to us.
Welcome Renie, thank you, Jams, thank you for contacting me and letting me be letting me with you.
Yeah, of course you're very welcome. So I think Rania, it's it's been a really hard time to consume news. For the first week of what's happening. I was in mostly Syrian and Iraqi Kurtistan, and I wasn't maybe consuming as much news so I normally do, because I was
trying to write news in today Uh. And then I got back there just the the barers you, information and disinformation has been very hard for people to sort of wade through, and I wonder I think one of the things I'd like us to focus on first and foremost is the impact of Israel's bombing campaign on journalists, specifically working in Gaza. I know, like friends of mine are journalists in Gaza. We featured on this podcast before the people of Parkour, Gaza, and I know that many journalists
have lost their lives covering what's been happening. So can you explain a little bit about what's been happening and maybe bring us up to date on the amount of every loss is a tragedy, but like the amount of people who have lost their lives covering this.
Yes, James, well, let's start that journalists and Gaza are civilians who are people who travel. They work, They should travel, but they work, They do their job. They try to cover the news with very hard conditions with the daily
life of Gaza. Since the beginning of the war against Gas on the seventh of October, you know how the war started targeting everything in Gaza, not even all the people, more than the people, you know, the buildings, the children, even the animals, the plants, you know, just bombing and bombing and bombing strikes the whole time. At the beginning, we try to we have some our contacts with journalists in Gaza, we have our General Secretaria member and so
we try to get information from them. At the beginning, Yeah, it was not easy, but it was okay to get some information about what's going on. But by the time now we reached to a place that when I call them, they always tell dozens of we don't know. We are disconnected. I'm homeless. Now, I am not able to get any news. I can't tell you about my friend or my neighbor next to me, but I'm not able to tell you about further than this. I will just give some statistics.
Up to now, we have eighteen killed journalists who have been either killed while try covering, others were killed in their homes, being through air strikes with their families and so on. We have also many many journalists who have dozens of them have been injured. I'm really sorry. I was I wanted to have some you know, I curate statistics, but I can't give you until now. We are now trying trying to develop like a tool to get some statistics,
but until now it's not working well. And we have many journalists who lost their homes, homes because it was bomb bombed or yeah, airstract others they were in this place, yeah, and many of them moves from their homes either because their homes was bombed or other because they were threatened to stay at their home safely, so they go to other like schools, hospitals and so on. The most tragic
is the journalists who are losing their families. When you call a journalist to ask him about any thing, they told you Okay, I lost my son, I lost my wife, I lost all my family, I lost my mother. Now they are they are completely broken. You can't talk to them. They are you know, it's really very tragic situation.
Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's literally unimaginable, like, yeah, I think I've attended wars, I've lost friends, but nothing. I can't imagine what it's like on this scale. And it's heartbreaking to even think about it. And I think some of what you said obviously, like part of the situation this creates is that it's very hard to do reporting on the ground. It's always been hard to do
reporting on the ground at Gaza. I have made plans to go to Gaza, which probably won't work out now, but it's hard foreign press, and of course there are many very capable journalists within Ghas that we don't need foreign press to go then necessarily. But can you explain a little bit of how when this war started, it didn't just like affect these people in terms of killing them,
killing their families, displacing them, detroying their homes. But also like every day this war goes on, it gets harder for us to see I think the impact of this war on civilians living in Gaza, right because of the image to infrastructure.
Is that fair to say, yes, this is what's going on, and yes, reporting is getting more and more complicated because as also you know, there is no electricity.
Communication is very very difficult when sometimes through phone call I call them just to get something, they tell me, okay, wait until I get some internet and I will get.
Back to you.
I wait for hours and hours, sometimes for the second day to get a little information. So you can imagine how they can even contact with each other.
Yeah, and yeah, that makes it very hard. I think often like we might have more info. This is not uncommon actually, like you have more information sitting somewhere with a broad bank connection and access to Twitter than you do on the ground, right, Like they may not know everything that's happening.
Yes, I don't know if I can talk about this, but you know about the restrictions that on all social media applications, the restrictions on the Palestinian contract content on the social media. We're facing a big massive wave against our content, was against our news through Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all those applications. So we are not able even to reach many people are banned, many people are hanged, and we are just hearing about the banning of many accounts
of Palestinians. The very limited reach the very limited, and there are sometimes many times they are blocked or yeah, blocked or from posting and so on. So even also this is another problem that we are facing to reach out.
Yeah, I think this is in a sense obviously, like it's in terms of specifically getting information about because I think that is important. I think if people could understand what it's like to see someone lose their baby, and then I think very few people would be able to
in good conscious support that. And the fact that this has come at a time when I think generally, certainly for the US, reporting on things outside the US is an all time low, like it's atrocious, and so people lack the context to understand, not through any fault of their own right, but they've just been fed terrible you know, opinion pieces for the last few years. They lack the
context to understand why what's happening is happening. And I think obviously Elon Muskusport, Twitter and and just it's accessible. It's terrible, it's full of false information. And as you say, often videos that I have friends who are photographers in Gaza, a friends who are just people in Gaza, and videos that they post be taken down. It's sometimes they're to say it's too graphic, it's too violent, but like also
that's their everyday life. Now that's been happening for two weeks. This, Yeah, graphic violence is sadly what's visited upon them every day.
Yeah, yes, believe me, what's going on in Gaza is very You can't image, you can't hold it when you when you watch it. Even the TV channels they try to make to minimize how dangerous and how violent are
the scenes that we see. At the same time, I had a discussion this morning, I don't want people to cry for us, it's not I don't want people to cry for the babies killed, and so with very hard pictures and videos, I just want the humanity without seeing the video just here that there is a charge it's loading child children. Thousands of children are losing their child's life or nothing. Are losing their hands, their legs, they
are now handicapped. They don't know why. You know, we don't need to see the video, just know that this is going on. We don't want to make a tragedy. We don't want to to people to cry with us when we cry. Yes, we want, okay, some solidarity, but it's not something to have the emotions and then then we sleep and then we wake up. That's what Or no, no, there is something going on. We don't need the sympath you know, we need some actions, we need steps, we need humanity now.
Yeah. So I think that's an excellent, really really excellent point. Like it's not a film or like something you can consume and then step away from. So what sort of solidarity actions can people take to support people in gather, to support journalists there, to support the greater cause of not having this issue where every few years thousands of Palestinian civilians get killed.
Yes, well, to be honest, we want when we want to feel better, we turn on the television to see the demonstrations. When we see the demonstrations London, blocks, cell the United States and different cities Arab world everywhere. When we see these demonstrations, we feel that somebody knows there is like a kind of movement. This helps us, and we need further steps after the demonstration. We need lobbying.
We need the people who elect their governments who support those massacs and to say no, we give you leg legitimacy to be human. Stop this inhumanity. We need the people to lobby on their governments that this should not be supported. This is this is the real action that we need. Lobbying, lobbying, lobbying by the people, by the power of people.
Yeah, I think it's one of those things, like some things will never change in America, at least not by voting, but like some things, yeah, if enough people and I think more people, Like I remember when I moved to America fifteen years ago, when I was young as twenty one, and I came into America and I had a free Palestine, like a badge on my jacket like to sew things on my jacket, you know, and they sent me straight to the secondary you know, like they're like where they
pat you down and take off your clothes and go through your bags and stuch, and like it just wasn't as big of a concern I think more people in the fifteen years since then have become aware of the tragedy and the loss of life. And certainly now I've seen more people wake up to what's happening and like protest or you know, get out and do things in a way that they wouldn't have done ten years ago.
And I think that's really it's good, Like hopefully that demand for people to be allowed to live with dignity and safety continues.
Yes, I mean, I just always want to ask anybody you'd like to say, are you going? Are you happy to pay your tax for killing others?
Is it Jesus?
Yeah, this is the very initial, very first question. Are you happy with this? Do you pay your tax for this or for anything that you like to have your tax to be paid for? Yeah, this is what we want. We are facing killing, we are facing assassination and bombarding and so on, and we need all What we need is humanity, nothing else.
I was thinking this morning of like, how very obviously right when when Russia bombed Ukrainian cities, most people said we should help the Ukrainians, send them moms, send them medical supplies, and some of them went and volunteered to fight the Ukrainians when and I understand that like this obviously this this conflict began in very different circumstances other than the Russia Ukraine conflict, but nonetheless, like little children are being killed and continue to be killed, and the
response wasn't the same. And I think some of that comes from like and not particularly hard to see orientalism in the US and the US media. Also some of it comes from the complete absence of Palestinian voices in certainly in like the English language press in America. And I wonder, like I know that there are certain organizations which have specifically worked to make it harder for Palestinian journalists,
like my friend Hassam Salem. He's an excellent photographer. You can find him on all the places where you find people on the internet. But we worked on stories together, and I know he's now had he's lost contract with major outlets because of this sort of campaign of accusing him of bias. I think it's hard not to be
biased when you see little children die. But I wonder if you could talk about that, like how Palestinian voices are excluded or missing from what even now right the Atlantic since two weeks of bombing now and I was looking this morning and they've managed to find two Palestinian voices to share. Like, you know, it's maybe not. I'll
have to check that after we've done. But I was flicking through these big sort of opinion piece type outlets and it's very clear that like even now, people haven't like editors specifically, or the greater press has not stopped excluding Palestinian voices. So maybe we could talk about like how that happens, what allows that to happen, and what people can do to help lift up those voices.
Well, yes, Perastilian voices are being banned all over by different movements. There are many times fired from their works and big news outlets and the media outlets for different political reasons. And if you want to go and through the stories, you find that some people are just trying to make to make problems for those people to let them leave their work and stop writing or telling the news or analyzing or anything about the Peristinian cause and
what's going on. We're facing this globally, and we have many cases recorded and undocumented in the pgs, and we can give you many examples about them. But I have to tell about something that we're a member of the International Federation of Journalists. And we have also even our president of Pilian Peristinian Journalist Syndicate. He's a vice president of the International Federation of Journalist. He has been elected last year in the last congress. We have sister unions.
One of them one of the best friends of us are the National Writers Union, the American National Writers Union, which is a very big supporter to us. They even
very got better. The general secretary even he visited us in Palestine a few months ago, and he's a very supporter of what's going on, of all our statements, of our news at the beginning of the world they produced like a statement about biosity and misleading news and so on, how to avoid them supporting the Palestinians, supporting our life, our right to life, and so on. So we we highly appreciate this movement. Of course, he's not the only one.
Many many syndicates, many unions all over the world sent us solidarity letters. Some of them supported us even with some in kind contribution, with some funds in addition to solidarity, in addition to demonstrations and so on, which really gave us a lot of power of hope. So we can continue and we are not alone.
Yeah, I think that's really powerful. Yeah. Well, I mean it's not enough, but it's something that unions. I think people also, if they're members of the union, can encourage their union to do that, right, just to make a statement, Yeah, just to show some solidarity. I wonder like what you talked about in kind donations, and you talked about the
support you're getting from unions. I know one unions which i'm a member, that's your Workers of the World FJAU just did a fundraiser or still doing a fundraiser for flag vests and bullet profess for journalists. What kind of support can people give, like in a concrete sense, beyond getting in the streets and protesting and writing letters and emails and phone calls. It's the stuff that they can do with their money, if they have some money.
Well, it's not a kind of money, it's a kind of I will tell you now, the situation in Gaza, we can't or what we do we need is a ceasfire, to be honest, they even don't have fresh water they drink by the way, and they say try to minimize that. The water they drink, and they know that the water they drink is not very clean, but just to survive. So you can start with this very basic need of life and then you go further. As I already told you that the safety vests are very important, but when
you are under strikes, this will never help you. But if I want to talk about the daily life, about how it's going and the West Bank and Gaza, our journalists, we all work under the same conditions of aggress the events, covering aggressive events and so on. So we try as pg US to to contact all the media outlets and Palestine to offer or provide safety kits for all journals to work in the field. But for example our freelancers, they work on their on responsibility and a very dangerous situation.
We try to to to tell how dangerous that what they do when you go to cover with you don't have very full safety kits or it's it's very dangerous for them, but they are not able to cover it and they want to they need to work, they need to do their job, so they do it in a very strained, sory, dangerous conditions. So one of the things that we can support unless yes, safety kets, which are very important. Medical kids also are very important. What what
else we try we try to to do. Also, we try to raise the awareness to make some materials for the journals about safety. Safety is very important for us. We try to teach them more about how to take care of themselves, how to report and so on, about their security and so on. This is mainly what I can talk about for for the needs or the inkind contribution. As I told you, in the current situation, for example, we try to support through some donations, through support to
support the journalists with better charging. Better is because of the lack of electricity and power sources in Gaza, so just to give them connected currently they are very useful for them and it helps.
Now.
Yeah, yeah, I can see. It's probably best that you guys just have money and then you can be flexible in getting what people need. I think that's generally the best advice. It's when there's a crisis, is to send the people nearest to it money and then they can decide what they need. I certainly I found that. I found that in a lot of places I worked. Yes, so you talked about the power situation. I think that's
sort of it has gone relatively unreported. I mean, it'll still say, like the power and water have been cut off, but that creates a lot of other dangerous situations, right Like obviously some people rely on that power if they're infirm, if they have medical devices, that kind of thing. But also like where there are places to charge, that results in a very high concentration of people. Right Like my friend was telling me that their parents were in a
hospital to charge their their devices. Right They wanted to call their child and say we're safe, we're alive, but their phone had run out of batteries, so they had to go to the hospit. Yeah, can you explain a little bit of some of the things that like that that has resulted in the loss of power for people.
Yes, of course. For example, first of all, let me tell you that we already asked quested all our journalists in Gaza to be in the hospitals for their safety. We try, we expect that it would be a pleas safe place, but there is no safe plessing as now as you already know about the hospitals that have been targeted. But we already asked them to be in the hospitals.
We try to make some press zones and the hospitals in some places whereas for press, for journalists to be there so they can get some electricity power and so they can ought to be together, try to exchange information and work together, so it will be better for them to work and safer between brackets always for them to work,
to be honest, Yes, I don't know. If you see the news now, it's we had the sun has set, so it's completely dark, and because you just gonna have some light and spots which are the hospitals, and you know that even the solar and the sorry, the fuel for school for hospitals is about to to to finish here and in two days I think maximum. But we will see. Maybe we'll have some trucks or they will get something inside Gaza for fuel and so on. But I'm not sure about this.
Yeah, I think, yeah, every day it's changing, I guess. And I wondered, like talking about getting things into gather, getting getting things two people in Gaza, a thing that seems to be completely like I don't know, Genue. It seems to be people think people could just walk out
of Gaza and go somewhere else. So I guess, just to be extremely clear on that, can you explain the situation for people in Gaza with respect to if they want their mobility and their ability to leave, because I think it's something that again has been like criminally overlooked in the United States, discourse.
Ability to leave Gaza.
I mean yeah, yeah, like a lack thereof would be more accurate, right, like they complete absence of that.
Well, unfortunately, people on Gaza are blocked. They are all and they are not allowed to leave Gaza with any kind of borders. Even the people who have international passports like American, European or whatever passports, they are not now. They are not able to leave Gaza. They have to face their faith now. They are just displaced from place to another. Some people have been displaced four times and for areas different areas, and others were displaced and bombed
letter So no, they are blocked. They have They are blocked in a like a very limited area which is under strikes the whole time. No place is safe, even the Baptist hospital. They thought that it would be a Baptist hospital, hospital related to a church and so on. It was strike massively cruely. More than five hundred have been killed. They were all children. Mothers are sitting just as thinking that it would be a shelter for them. So, yes, this is the situation because there is no safe place,
no hospitals. If you are in a hospital, you will be bombed. If you are in school, you'll be bombed. If you are in a mosque if you will be bombed. If you're in a church, you will be bombed. No safe place unfortunately.
Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's unimaginable. And like the act of bombing that we were talking about this before we started, but like when you're being bombed, it's very different from like a small art conflict or even like a you know whatever, artillery motors rockets like you, there isn't much you can do to be safe. It's not like there is no like cover from bombs. You know that, you you there's no.
By the way, there's no under ground shoulters.
Yeah.
Yeah, and now they are intense. By the way, they were in houses houses, they were falling on their heads, so they went to tense. So when they were tent falls, it's.
Not so yeah Jesus, Yeah, it's it's bleak. It's yeah, it's it's unimaginable. Like I said, yeah, I just spent a week in a place that was being.
Very fat protected by the sky which is full of planes bombing them.
Yeah. Yeah, and every time you look up you wonder what that is and is this still time or is
this still one? So I think one thing people are really struggling with is like overload of information missed information, right, just some of the worst pieces I've ever seen in opinion pieces on PLA things center social media, which are like it seems that we've returned to like peak a islamophobic rhetoric of like September twelve, two thousand and one, and we've learned absolutely nothing from twenty years of killing
and dying. So I wonder where you would recommend if there are members of your syndicate or other places where people can find reliable and for reporting which is you know, fact checked, which is not overloading and with you know, like if if you go on Twitter to try and find your information at the minute, you're just going to get into an argument with someone who has the worst opinions in the world, and it's not good and it can dissuade you from taking action in the ways that
you've mentioned which are actually useful. So is there a place you suggest people look for information outlets or individuals they could follow.
Well, who wants to know the truth will be will find it. You know, the media is always any media outlet, it has its it has its mandate and vision and so on. So I just advise everyone when you go for any outlet, media outlet, just try to read about what's what's its mandate, who's they are related to, who's they are supporting, and so on, so to know from which perspective you will know the truth. I can't tell now the names of outlets because I am. It's not
me who to decide who's who's the right one. As you know, I am, I work in a syndicate which is like a union, which is for all journalists with all food, all at outlets, so they are all our members.
So yeah, yeah, I think that's advice so that people can take more. It's it's good advice that people can take more broadly, because I think people are completely unaware the ownership of some outlets that mandate there perceived biases.
Yes, try to read about them, not only the New Elf, not the news itself, but try to see about this outlet, about this establishment, how it's working, what their objectives, how do they work, and what are their connections and so on, so you will know what kind of which kind of news they are covering and how do they cover it? Y. Yes, this is what I can say for us as tell
a journalist syndicate. We try now to report about journalists because this is our manda, this is our work to tell about what's going for our members, to try to get any protection for them. Actually were this appen in this very hard condition. But we try our through our friends, through our relations to our supporters, through our memberships and so on, to have some international support for them through information, through like a flow of information telling what's going on.
How many journalists have been killed, how many journals are displaced, how many and so on, So we try to give data those that are not. As I already told you, it's really a hard job that we are going we are doing now. It's getting more and more difficult. We are trying to cope, trying to develop new tools to cope with this hard, very hard speit situation. But we try our maximum to be nests to get very real
and true information, not to get any misleading information. There's a flow of misleading information information Even we hear about many journalists that they are killed, but when we try to make sure that we found that they are not journalists,
we don't get them put them in our lists. We try to investigate as much as we can, so to put our lists to be limited to journalists, to our members, to the people who work with us, with our within our mandad and so on, so to be credible source of information.
Yeah, I think it's very important. I am so. I don't know if you guys shared it. I sure a video early on it was well, I was still in Syrian courdi is down, but we were watching it a funeral of three journalists who have been killed, and like someone was saying at the funeral that they were speaking and there's someone else will pick up his camera and like keep documenting things. Really was very emotional for me and my friends. Yeah, it was really sad, but.
Yes it is.
Yeah, I believe you. It's just you know, that's the thing that I do, and I see people, you know, dressed like me. People I know it's been very of your coverage of that has been very emotionally challenging for me, but it should be emotionally challenging. It's terrible, but I think people should definitely tune into it if they can. I wonder, are there like social media accounts that the PJS has that people can follow.
Yes, we have Facebook page. It's on Facebook. Yes, it's a Palestinian Journalist syndicate. Yeah, just and we try to download all our news on it. Also we have our website which is www dot PJS dot p S. Also you can find some news statements, updates and so on.
Yeah, that's great, and I encourage people to to follow that they're able to. I wonder, really, is there anything else you think that people are like, anything that's been missing from the media narrative that you'd like people to know about the situation now in Palestine, or like the situation more broadly that hasn't been reported on as much as it should be. Yeah.
Yeah, I just want to add something about besides what's going on, and because even a journalists in the West Bank, even in Palestinian journalists in Israel are facing a lot of threats, facing a lot of problems. There is a massive campaign of arrests. So up to now one thousand, in three days, one thousand persons have been arrested. We're trying to find the number of journalists, which is I'm not sure about it, but I can't give you the figure, as I told you, because of the big number we're
trying to make who are the journalists? But a massive arrests campaign is taking place now. Also, journalists are facing a lot of threats about a lot of violations while covering. Many times they are prevented from coverage, They are threatened by weapons, They are threatened sometimes by the settlers aren't
settlers even not the army while covering many of them. Also, they they are subject to incitement through social media pages like spreading their photos or the and so to make a kind of excitement how to kill them or to get rid of them and so on. So, also journalists are facing a very hard time now. Yeah, they are under the threat.
Yeah damn, Yeah, that's terrible and kipedian acceptable. So yeah, I'm glad you shared that, and I think it's important that people follow this and do whatever they can to help, do whatever they can to to I don't know, to encourage people to stop bombing other people, Like it's never a good situation. People are bombing children and hopefully it comes to an end, get it. I don't know. I've never seen this much outgoing support for Palestine in the United States. But I've also you know, this is an
unprecedented act of a war crimes solicated. It's very hard to see where this is going. I suppose.
Yes, we believe that the voice is reaching maybe a little but not that fast that that's easy, because it's not easy. But we believe in every person who thinks and say, no, this is inhuman I should not I should be with those people who are under attack, who are under under Yeah, a lot of hard life. Yeah, it's a hard life, a lot of oppostion.
So yeah, when.
We see that as adult, when we see the demonstrations, it really gives us power. It really gives us that we have right to life. You know, this is a minimum right that we need people to tell us, Yes, you have a right to life.
Yeah, I think that's it's nice to hear, you know it. It's like if you can feel that you're helping, even just helping people feel like a little bit, you know, elevated, a little bit better, a little bit less despairing, because I can see how it would be very easy if you're stuck in Gaza to feel like the world's abandon you because it has to a large degree, right, the world's allowed this to happen, and it's you know, it's
not it's American bombs, American plaints dropping bombs unfortunately. Yeah. So I think that's really good to hear. It's good to hear that that has made some difference. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time. I know it's thank you.
Thank you, Jams, thank you for having me with you. I wish you all good luck. Thank you, Thank you all who listener listeners to this podcast. I hope that I was able to give you an overview of what's going on. And let's pray that this violence will end very soon.
Yes, yeah, yeah, indeed, let's thank you very much. I was wonderful.
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