A temporary pause in Gaza + a break back in Dublin
Hello from Dublin,
I’m back in Ireland after six weeks reporting in Israel-Palestine. I still have some stories to come out from when I was in Jerusalem and will share them when they’re published.
My last week of reporting focused on Palestinian citizens of Israel, the West Bank, and the official visit of Tánaiste Micheál Martin to Israel and the West Bank.
Around one fifth of Israeli citizens are Palestinian or Arab, and since the war many have faced an oppressive environment in Israel. I spoke with a Palestinian Israeli politician who had been detained after trying to organise an event calling for an end to the war in Nazareth, the largest Arab city in Israel. You can read the piece here.
I also had another update on the Sean Rooney case in Lebanon where the main suspect has been released on bail.
Last week, I spent a day in Huwara, a town in the occupied West Bank. I visited the town earlier this year after a violent attack by a mob of Israeli settlers who set fire to many stores and homes in Huwara. When I returned, it was a ghost town as heavy military restrictions imposed since the war mean Palestinian cannot travel easily around the West Bank and many businesses have been forced to close. You can read the piece here.
At the end of last week, the Department of Foreign Affairs chartered a special plane to fly Michael Martin and press to Egypt and then onto Israel. I joined the delegation in Tel Aviv to cover the Israel and West Bank part of the visit. You can read the coverage here.
Official visits usually involve very long days, a lot of travel and filing copy on the go. The visit started at a hotel in Tel Aviv where I grabbed some breakfast with the other journalists who had travelled from Ireland. I typically don’t spend much time with other Irish journalists while I’m reporting abroad so these type of visits are usually a nice excuse to meet journalists I only know from Twitter in person and who are more clued in on Irish domestic issues + politics.
After a quick breakfast we headed in a special car to Sderot near the Gaza border where we sat in on a meeting with the Mayor of Sderot and the Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. The we visited Kibbutz Be’eri, where Tom Hand and Emily Hand lived before the 7th October attack. Then it was onto Jerusalem where we did a quick press briefing with Michael, had some food and then began the journey to Ramallah in the West Bank. We didn’t get to sit in on the meetings with the Palestinian Prime Minister or Foreign Minister, or with Michael Martin’s visit with the Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Michael gave a briefing then at the airport in Tel Aviv before heading back on the private plane.
I also wrote about the protests calling for Netanyahu to resign and what recent polling tells us about the public support for the longest-serving Israeli prime minister. You can read it here.
Much love,
Hannah
Some articles and videos that I think are worth looking at this week
Mehdi Hasan did a good short documentary for the Intercept in 2018 on how Israeli policy helped to create and strengthen Hamas. Worth a watch to get a better understanding of how the current situation in Gaza came about.
The Times of Israel has a good piece on the background to the hostage release negotiations.
Gideon Rachman on the gap between law and morality in war tactics in The FT.
Some photos from the last week
The Church of Annunciation in Nazareth in northern Israel.
A father and his daughter from Gaza are now stranded in Huwara while the rest of their family is in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Women praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s old city.
A Palestinian-owned pizzeria in Huwara was demolished after its facebook account shared an advert with an image of one of the hostages in Gaza.
Arab-Israeli politician Sami Abu Shehadeh was detained after trying to organise an anti-war rally in Nazareth, the largest majority Arab city in Israel.