GAZA STRIP: Arab media cover the war
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Once again Arab television blanketed the airwaves with coverage of the conflict in Gaza.
And once again Arab media gave a rather distinct view of the conflict, which differed starkly from the view presented to the West.
Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, broadcast interviews with victims of violence at a hospital in Gaza, asking survivors what they felt about the invasion.
One woman, whose 20-year-old son was hit by a shrapnel from the air raid in the head, said that her whole family was in fear, that they had stopped sleeping and spent most of their day praying God to save them.
The channel broadcast constant images of children covered with blood being rushed into hospitals and interviews with parents who had lost their children.
In one report, Al Jazeera cited Palestinians as saying that despite all their technology, the Israelis would not be able to achieve a quick victory over Hamas.
The channel showed images of Israeli soldiers limping with a reporter saying this is how the soldiers appeared after the first phase of the incursion.
Another commentary by Al Jazeera from the United Nations headquarters said this was first time Israel had come under so much criticism by the Security Council.
The report spoke of the divide between the Arab people and their leaders.
The channel showed simultaneously images of masses protesting in Rabat, Morocco, Beirut and Istanbul.
The reporter in Rabat said that the usual divisive religious and political slogans were absent and people were unified in protesting against the ‘barbarism’ of the Israelis.
Arab television also played footage of a speech in Beirut by Osama Hamdan, the representative of Hamas in Lebanon:
Our enemy has lost the war before the beginning of the incursion... this is why they are hiding the facts.... United Nations, you are adding a crime against our people.... [Oh nation] this war in Gaza is not the war of Hamas and Palestine only. It’s your war. You either win it or lose it like you lost Palestine 60 years ago.... To the people of Gaza I say ... God chose you to write a page of glory.... This is the beginning of victory to Gaza.... To the Israelis we say: This is the beginning of the great war.... This is the beginning of the end for you. Pack your bags.... You should understand clearly that we decided to win this fight and we will, if God wills.
The ticker at the bottom of the screen read, ‘Millions around the world protest to demand an end of Israeli operations in Gaza.’
Al Arabiya, the other huge pan-Arab news channel, scrolled at the bottom of its screen: ‘Urgent: children and women among the victims of the Israeli invasion.”
“The images and the rushing of ambulances are enough to show what the humanitarian situation in Gaza is,” the anchorman of Al Arabiya said.
The reporters called Israeli soldiers the army of the occupation.
On the Shiite militia Hezbollah’s Al Manar television, the reporter in Gaza claimed that the Israeli tanks remained in the uninhabited zones and could not enter inside the villages.
He added that the primary goal of the Israelis was to kill the biggest possible number of Palestinians. This morning, there were two martyrs whose age was less 2 years, he added.
A retired Lebanese army general and military expert, Walid Soukariyeh, said in a live interview with the channel that Israeli elite soldiers had only entered the uninhabited zones of the Gaza Strip and like the July 2006 war with Hezbollah would find a lot of resistance in the villages and would not be able to enter the residential areas.
He said that the resistance fighters were showing steadfastness and would prevent Israeli soldiers from entering inhabited areas. He said that Israelis were trying to isolate the different parts of the Gaza Strip but all they were doing was encircling towns in vain.
A spokesperson from a Palestinian militant group in Gaza, Abou Ahmad, told Al Manar in a telephone interview that the enemy tried to isolate Gaza City but instead the opposite happened and all their efforts were squandered.
He assured viewers that there were thousands of fighters that were fiercely battling the Israeli army. He said that the enemy’s elite had been vanquished.
A caricature published in the Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper today showed one spent rocket signed, “From Hamas” falling inside Israel with tens of television and photo cameras focused on it, while tens of Israeli rockets falling on Gaza were ignored.
The main headline of the newspaper said, “An invasion from several fronts.... Gaza under the threat of a holocaust.”
The Lebanese pro-Hezbollah daily Al Diyar described the battle of Gaza as the historical war for Palestine.
The newspaper wrote that “based on reports the Palestinian resistance is fiercely fighting against the Israeli army and inflicting material and human losses and is fully ready to face the aggression and will show heroic acts and offer martyrdom to prevent Israel from reaching its goal of causing the fall of Gaza.”
An editorial published by the newspaper today said that “the resistance of Gaza and its victory will be the second defeat for Israel,” adding that Israel would not overcome this defeat after losing a first battle against the Lebanese resistance.
“The next generations will talk about the defeat of Israel and the collapse of its nation ... in the face of a resistance fighting with their chests against rockets, warplanes and fire,” it said.
— Raed Rafei in Beirut
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