Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Mohammed Omer, Truth and Consequences Under the Israeli Occupation, The nation, July 31, 2008

This summer, at age 24, I was honored to learn that I had become the youngest journalist to receive the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, named for the famed American war reporter and awarded to journalists who counter propaganda with the truth. Although Israel has sealed Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians in what many now call the world’s largest open-air prison, Dutch MP Hans Van Baalen lobbied the Israeli government to let me leave Gaza to receive my award in person. Upon my return from London, I was surrounded by Israeli security officers. I was stripped naked at gunpoint, interrogated, kicked and beaten for more than four hours. At one point I fainted and then awakened to fingernails gouging at the flesh beneath my eyes. An officer crushed my neck beneath his boot and pressed my chest into the floor. Others took turns kicking and pinching me, laughing all the while. They dragged me by my feet, sweeping my head through my own vomit. I lost consciousness. I was told later that they transferred me to a hospital only when they thought I might die.

Today, I have difficulty breathing. I have abrasions and scratches on my chest and neck. My hands don’t function well; typing is difficult. My doctor informed me that due to nerve damage from one kick, I may be unable to father children and will need to have an operation.

Israeli attacks on journalists are not new; nor are they rare. In April, Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana was killed by fire from an Israeli tank. He was in a car, clearly marked as press. According to Amnesty International, “Fadel Shana appears to have been killed deliberately although he was a civilian taking no part in attacks on Israel’s forces.”

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the Israeli military’s widespread “abusive behavior” of Palestinian journalists. And the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that journalists covering Israeli military actions in the West Bank and Gaza “contend with perennial abuses at the hands of Israeli forces.” In 2007 alone, Israeli soldiers shot photographers from Agence France-Presse, Al-Ayyam newspaper and Al-Aqsa TV. The television cameraman, Imad Ghanem, fell to the ground when wounded. Israeli forces then shot him twice more in the legs. Both of his legs have been amputated.

Democracy Now! | Award-Winning Palestinian Journalist Mohammed Omer Details Abuse

by Israeli Security Officials, July 7, 2008

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to award-winning Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer. The twenty-four-year-old journalist and photographer from Gaza was physically and psychologically abused by Israeli security officials late last month. He is a correspondent for the Inter Press Service, was on his way back home after receiving the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in London.

Mohammed Omer says he was interrogated, strip-searched and beaten by eight armed Shin Bet officials. He was hospitalized for a week after the ordeal. The Shin Bet security service issued a response, saying Omer “received decent treatment and no extraordinary measures were taken against him.”

At twenty-four, Omer has seen most of his family killed or wounded. He is the youngest winner of the Martha Gellhorn award, named after the famous US war correspondent, given to journalists who expose establishment propaganda. His award citation reads, “Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless.”

Mohammed Omer joins me right now on the phone from Gaza. Welcome to Democracy Now!

MOHAMMED OMER: Thanks, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what happened and when it happened? You were just coming back from London after receiving your award?

MOHAMMED OMER: Well, let me mention before I start that I’m also writing for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in Washington, D.C.

When I was coming back from my award ceremony and also a speaking engagement, I was stopped for nearly one hour and a half before an Israeli Shin Bet officer came to me and started collecting my bags, which were securely checked already. I kept waiting for some time until they got my luggage and they started checking everything.

The Shabak officer just came to me and then said, “You are a crazy man.” And I just kept quiet and listened to what he’s going to say. And then he said, “Is there anyone who has been to the Netherlands, to France, to Sweden, to Greece and to the United Kingdom and come back to Gaza Strip? Gaza is a dirty place. Why do you come back to Gaza? Gaza is a dirty place, and the people there are dirty. Why do you come to live in such a place, where there is no electricity, there is no light, and there is darkness, and there is shortages of fuel, and there is lots of difficulties? Why don’t you live in France, instead?”

Mohammed Omer before he was beaten by Israeli security officials

Source: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/06/30/shin-bet-offers-palestinian-

journalist-gitmo-treatment, last accessed July 5, 2008

Mohammed Omer

Mel Frykberg, MIDEAST: When You Shoot the Messenger, IPS, July 3, 2008

GAZA CITY, Jul 3 (IPS) - The assault of IPS Gaza correspondent Mohammed Omer has left Israeli security personnel with a lot of explaining to do. And they are not doing a very good job of it.

Omer was abused and assaulted by Israeli security personnel at the Allenby border crossing into Israel from Jordan as he tried to return to his home last week in the Gaza Strip.

Omer was returning from Europe where he had addressed European parliamentarians on the situation on the ground in Gaza. In London he picked up a prize as joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (along with IPS correspondent Dahr Jamail).

Omer, who also reports for The Washington Report, told IPS he was verbally abused, strip-searched at gunpoint and physically beaten. He was later hospitalised with broken ribs and related trauma.

Israeli officials denied to IPS in Jerusalem that the award-winning journalist had been mistreated. They said the Gazan journalist had “lost his balance” after being searched on “suspicion of smuggling in illegal items.”

The officials were unable to explain how Omer, who is still hospitalised and in severe pain, “lost his balance” and then broke his ribs and severely bruised his arm in the “fall”.

Award-winning Palestinian reporter ‘abused’ by Israeli security officers, The Independent, July 2, 2008

The Dutch Foreign Minister, Maxime Verhagen, has officially complained to Israel after accusations by an award-winning Palestinian journalist from Gaza that he was abused during almost four hours of detention at the border with Jordan.

Mohammed Omer, 24, says that he was manhandled and strip-searched and fainted during interrogation when he returned from a Dutch government-facilitated trip to London to collect a prestigious British journalism award, the Martha Gellhorn Prize.

Mr Omer, who is now in hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis with suspected cracked ribs after the incident on Thursday last week, was a joint winner of the prize for his reporting from the Strip.

Mr Omer said yesterday that he was ordered to strip down to his underwear and when he protested at being forced to remove his underpants a security officer “snatched” them off him. He said he later fainted and awoke to find a security official applying pressure to his upper chest. He said he vomited several times and two officers later dragged him by his legs to another location. His requests to contact the Dutch escort were rejected, he said.

Jim Lobe, LobeLog.com, Mohammed Omer’s Statement, July 3, 2008

“SUMMARY OF EVENTS IN THE DETENTION, INTEROGATION & TORTURE
OF PRIZE WINNING INTERNATIONAL JOURNALIST, AGE 24, GAZA NATIVE MOHAMMED OMER BY ISRAELI AUTHORITIES, JUNE 26-27, 2008.

Note: This is a compilation of his first hand account of the events of June 26 and June 27, 2008. On June 28th as this is being transcribed Omer is again in transit to a European hospital in Gaza due to chest pains and difficulty breathing and swallowing as a result of the following.

07:00, THURSDAY JUNE 26, 2008:
Mohammed Omer arrives at the Jordanian transit center to catch the bus which will take him across the border to the Israeli transit center at Allenby, just west of Amman Jordan in the Occupied West Bank. Omer was returning from a multi-country speaking tour on the situation in Gaza in Europe in addition to receiving the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism with co-recipient Dahr Jamal. Omer at age 24 is the youngest person in history to receive this prestigious award. He arrived in Amman from France Saturday June 21, 2008, eager to get home for his brother’s wedding next Thursday. Israeli authorities refused him transit forcing him to remain in limbo on a Jordanian transit visa for five days until word arrived he’d be allowed to go home.

Boarding the bus that crosses the border between the Occupied Territories and Jordan, the following transpired.

09:50, THURSDAY JUNE 26, 2008:
Mohammed Omer: “I arrived with others at the Israeli immigration terminal at Allenby around 9:50 AM, entering with the others on my transport, through luggage collection and security screening which leads into the holding area for passport control. As I stood in line to approach the passport agents, I believed everything to be okay and that I’d soon be home in Gaza. At this point a female Israeli soldier approached me and asked, ‘Where are you from?’ I replied, ‘Gaza’. She asked, ‘Where is that?’ and I answered in Hebrew, ‘Azzah’. She nodded, stating ‘Oh yes,’ before pausing and adding, ‘Actually, according to my computer, you don’t have an entry permit.’ Pointing to the rows of chairs facing the Passport agents she motioned me to have a seat and told me someone would call my name.

Israel denies it mistreated Gaza journalist at Jordan crossing - Haaretz/Reuters, July 1, 2008

Israel denied on Tuesday allegations by a Palestinian journalist that he was abused and injured by Israeli security personnel while on his way home to the Gaza Strip after receiving a journalism award in Britain.

Mohammed Omer said from his hospital bed on Monday that he was detained for nearly four hours at the Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge when he crossed from Jordan into the occupied West Bank, en route to the Gaza Strip, on June 26.

Omer said he was forced to strip to his underwear by an Israeli officer who then “snatched it down off me”. He said two officers dragged him by his legs, his head sweeping the floor, in front of other passengers, and that he vomited and fainted.

An Israeli security official said a body search and an examination of Omer’s belongings were carried out “because of the suspicion that he had been in contact with hostile elements and had been asked by them to smuggle something in”.

The official said Omer received “fair treatment and no irregular action was taken towards him” during the search.

“At the end of the search, he lost his balance and fell, for some reason unknown to us. A team of medics, an ambulance and a paramedic were summoned and he was transferred for treatment to Jericho,” the official said.

Shin Bet Offers Palestinian Journalist ‘Gitmo Treatment’ | Tikun Olam-תקון עולם, June 30, 2008

If you’re an award-winning Gaza journalist, the Shin Bet has a message for you: get out and don’t come back. Inter-Press Service photographer Mohammed Omer just won the distinguished Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in London. He traveled to Jordan on his way home and stopped to coordinate his return with Israeli authorities. Once he was given proper approvals he went to the Allenby Bridge to cross into the Occupied Territory. Here is what happened:

Accompanied by Dutch diplomats, Omer passed through the Jordanian side of the border without incident. However, after arrival on the Israeli side, trouble began. He informed a female soldier that he was returning home to Gaza. He was repeatedly asked where Gaza was, and told that he had neither a permit nor any coordination to cross.

Omer explained that he did indeed have permission and coordination but was nevertheless taken to a room by Israel’s domestic intelligence agency the Shin Bet, where he was isolated for an hour and a half without explanation.

“Eventually I was asked whether I had a knife or gun on me even though I had already passed through the x-ray machine, had my luggage searched, and was in the company of Dutch diplomats,” Omer said.

His luggage was again searched, and security then proceeded to go through every document and paper he had on him, taking down the names and numbers of the European parliamentary officials he had met.

The Shin Bet officials then started to make fun of the European parliamentarians, and mocked Omer for being “the prize-winning journalist”.

The Gazan journalist was repeatedly asked why he was returning to “the hell of Gaza after we allowed you to leave.” To this he responded that he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless. He was told he was a “trouble-maker”.

The security men also demanded he show all the money he had on him, and particular attention was paid to the British pounds he was carrying. His Gellhorn prize money had been awarded in British pounds but he was not carrying the entire sum on him bodily, something the investigators refused to believe.

After being unable to produce the prize money, he was ordered to strip naked.

“At first I refused but then I had an M16 (gun) pointed in my face and my clothes were forcibly removed, even my underwear,” Omer said.

At this point Omer broke down and pleaded for an end to such treatment. He said he was told, “you haven’t seen anything yet.” Every cavity of his body was searched as one of the investigators pinned him down on the floor, placing his boot on Omer’s neck. Omer began vomiting, and fainted.