Mel Frykberg: Omer hospitalised with broken ribs and trauma
July 5, 2008 8:26 am Mohammed Omer's Ordeal
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”.