THE DANGERS AND DIFFICULTIES OF REPORTING FROM GAZA

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Mohammed Omer is presently on a speaking tour of the United States. He is interviewed here by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now......

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The Dangers and Difficulties of Reporting from Gaza: Two Journalists Recount Their Experiences

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined now by two journalists who have covered Gaza extensively. Mohammed Omer is an award-winning Palestinian journalist from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. On his way back home to Gaza after receiving the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in London in July of 2008, Omer was interrogated and beaten by armed Israeli security guards. He's been living in the Netherlands ever since, receiving medical treatment. Omer is now on a US speaking tour; he's joining us from Houston, Texas. And joining us here in New York is the Gaza correspondent for Al Jazeera English, Ayman Mohyeldin. He is one of the only international journalists reporting from inside Gaza during Operation Cast Lead last year.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Mohammed Omer, let's go first to you in Houston. And I'm glad you were able to get into this country. I know you had trouble at the beginning. But describe what happened to you after receiving this prestigious award, the Martha Gellhorn Prize.

MOHAMMED OMER: Well, it was upon my return from London, where I received the Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize, where I have been taken by the Israeli security personnel and forced to take off clothes under gunpoint. Those who attacked me, they were basically looking for the money that I won from the Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize, and they wanted to humiliate me by asking me different types of questions.

And before that, I was literally beaten on my chest and neck and ribs, and I was also attacked inside a closed room, where one of the officials, who is called Avi, a man, a tall man who is bald, and he's trying to grab me from the bones, taking the bones and using his nail fingers beneath under my eyes, trying to pinch, and kicking me in different places in my body. This is because I failed to present the money that I won from the Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize. That was on the 26th of June, 2008.

After several hours of attack and kicking and beating, I fainted. And after that, I was taken into Jericho Hospital. And from there, I went to the Gaza Strip. It took nearly three months to get me out of the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in the Netherlands.

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