On the morning of Saturday, October 7, 2023, the first news from the Jerusalem correspondents arrived shortly after 7 a.m. at the International Service headquarters in Paris. From Jerusalem to Beirut, passing through Washington, Cairo and the Middle East office of the Paris editorial office, the mobilization was immediate to cover the massacres committed by Hamas and then the murderous war waged in retaliation by Israel in Gaza.
For a year now, a dozen journalists from the International Service have been trying to tell the story of this conflict, unprecedented for its magnitude, its violence, its duration, its implications, but also for the working conditions, as well as the closing. of the main theater of war, the Gaza Strip, decreed by the Israeli authorities, imposes on journalists.
Other services of the newspaper participate in this work: Photo, Video and Infographics that use the images that continue to leave the enclave thanks to social networks and the Palestinian journalists who are still there, verify their origin and analyze satellite data, which they show from the sky a territory that cannot be stepped on.
At a distance and in chaos
From Gaza under the bombs, the testimonies are linked to a fragile thread of telephone conversations or written and vocal messages sent depending on Internet connections and power outages. Added to these technical obstacles is the difficulty of maintaining reliable sources, remotely and in the midst of chaos. The newspaper’s regular contributors continue to do this work, while they themselves experience the wandering and trauma of the people of Gaza, thrown from one “safe zone” to another by the Israeli army and subjected to its massive bombings. People our journalists already knew before the war help provide information, images and testimonies. Members of humanitarian organizations, which still have access to the Gaza Strip, also report on part of the reality experienced in the enclave.
As the weeks go by and this unprecedented blackout, the asymmetry in access to information sources has become more striking. As early as October 7, the Israeli army, police and political authorities organized press conferences in English, allowed supervised access to the devastated kibbutzim and offered press tours under the military’s strict control in the already ruined Strip. from Gaza.
For a year now, correspondents and special correspondents have been able to work in Israel and meet with relatives of victims and hostages of October 7, displaced from the northern front to the Lebanese border, political leaders, intellectuals, soldiers, etc., showing the impact of the war against Israeli society. The occupied West Bank is more or less easily accessible, depending on Israeli military operations, but there it is possible to report on this part of the war-affected Palestinian population. Gaza remains out of reach.
