He blogged from the heart of the conflict

Daily updated body count, pictures of mass graves and stories about people looking for their loved ones in the rubble of destroyed buildings. Blogger Sameh A Habeeb was the voice inside of Gaza during the attack.

The day of the ceasefire PHOTO: Sameh A Habeeb

– I don’t get sad when I see dead bodies any longer, it is almost part of the normal life. I get frustrated because their stories are buried with them.

“And so and so, a severed leg here, a chopped off hand there, slivers in the head”, writes Sameh A Habeeb in a detached reporter tone on his blog about the life in Gaza. The 23-year-old, who has studied literature and worked as a journalist for a couple of years, has turned into a true war correspondent during the last few weeks. In despite of constant power cuts, rocket rain and threats to his life, he managed to update his blog Gaza str, the untold story every day, starting with the first day of the attack until ceasefire.

- Since the international media was not allowed to enter Gaza, I saw it as my mission to try to spread the information about what is happening here the only way I could, he says.

Blogging from a region in conflict has proven to be very difficult. Sameh A Habeeb lives in the Toffah area, in eastern Gaza, which was exposed to daily rocket attacks. In order to find material for his posts, he got out of the house armed with his camera, talked to people and documented the destruction.

During a two-week blackout he walked for four kilometres every day to charge his computer at a friend’s house.

- It was not very safe but it gave me two golden hours to write down and post all the information on the blog and mail my contacts. I had to work fast, he says.

With his persistent blogging, Sameh A Habeeb has made a name for himself in the blogosphere. Gaza strip, the untold story has over 300 followers from all over the world and Sameh gets ten or so phone calls from journalists and sympathizers every day. Proclaimed a hero, he has been interviewed several times in international media reporting on the situation.

The question is: how many knew about Sameh A Habeeb before the attack on Gaza? He actually started blogging almost one year ago, with the mission to convey a picture of the conditions in Gaza few months after the border was closed and the supply of electricity and raw materials was cut back. His posts from that time showed the life in the “outside prison”, as he calls the Gaza strip, where the siege was impossible to ignore.

When outside he heard the children pretending to be Fatah and Hamas. When he took a cab he got upset with the driver who raised the price because of the acute shortage of gas. When he sat down in front of a computer to apply for a master program, there was a power blackout and he risked missing yet another deadline.

- We live like animals in a cage, he says.

Even if he supports a peaceful solution to the conflict and renounces any type of violence, he can understand those who support Hamas.

- We are living under a siege. Considering the situation we are in, it is only natural that there is some sort of resistance. People are desperate, he says.

In one of his older posts he writes: ”Frustration among Palestinians stems from a feeling of invisibility, that our welfare has been ignored by the Israel and its western allies”.

During the 22 days of attack, Gaza has become more visible than ever before. But it took over 1200 dead men, women and children before that happened. Hopefully this time, the world is not quick to forget.

Story published in Swedish in  Göteborgs Fria Tidning

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