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ONE News correspondent Mark Crysell - Source: ONE News -
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I'm writing this on a hill, near the Israeli town of Sderot. On top of the hill is a single Cypress Pine and a young Hasidic Jew sits in a swing hanging off a branch, watching. About a kilometre away Gaza burns.
Huge plumes of smoke rise darkly from bombed buildings. I can hear the distant constant thud of military helicopters, the muffled boom of artillery and the rat tat tat of machine gun fire. Soldiers, civilians, women and children are dying violently over there.
And dotted all over the hill are around 50 TV cameras and a couple of hundred journalists, cameramen and women, technicians and rubber-neckers.
This is as close as we can get to reporting the military assault on Gaza. Israel has sealed the border and the military has ignored an Israeli Supreme Court order saying journalists should be allowed in.
It's part of controlling the message. The PR war is almost as important as the ground offensive. Israel has prepared for this side of the war for some time. I am daily bombarded by emails from the Israeli Government Press Office with updates of how Operation Cast Lead is progressing, suggesting experts and analysts I could interview and detailing how much humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza.
The messages are simple and repetitive and designed to resonate in the West, especially America. This is a war on Terror. Hamas is to blame. Israel had to defend itself against the constant barrage of rocket and missile attacks. Any civilian casualties are because Hamas are using human shields and siting their weapons in mosques and schools.
I flicked through news channels as news broke today of 40 people killed when an Israeli bomb hit a UN school. BBC World, Sky, CNN and Fox. Every Israeli commentator was staying firmly on message. Hamas was to blame. They were storing weapons there and using human shields.
Is the first casualty of war really the truth? We won't know until we can get in there and that's unlikely to happen any time soon, even after a ceasefire. Each day we get pushed further back from the front line.
There are brave reporters and photojournalists in Gaza risking their lives to tell of the living hell a small strip of land about the size of the Hutt Valley has become. Without them Gaza would be suffering in silence. Their images of dead and wounded children are the ones that are resonating. It is those images that will force a ceasefire.
There are no good or bad guys here, only victims. Hamas provoked the attacks by constantly firing rockets into Israel for the past eight years. They believe they have lured the Israeli army into a trap. The Egyptians say if you can't kill the wolf then don't pull its tail.
The Israelis want to show they're still the strongest military power in region after the setbacks of the 2006 war against Hezbollah. They are an overwhelming deadly force. At some stage there will be another ceasefire but many more will die before a piece of paper is signed.
Meanwhile the rest of the world sits on a hill, looking in and wondering whether this fire can ever be permanently extinguished.
Have you got an opinion on the issues that Mark discusses? Share them on the message board below.
Add a Comment:
Post new commentfarhatmirza said on 2009-01-21 @ 09:43 NZDT: Report abusive post
Dear Sir/Madam, If and when the information is declassified, it may come out that the connection between 'shoe-treatment' of G.Bush in Iraq and, the carnage if not the genocide that followed in Ghaza, was not, after all, the figment of ones imagination. Regards, fjm
sheildzee said on 2009-01-20 @ 19:34 NZDT: Report abusive post
Please report accurately. Hamas did not "seize control of Gaza from Abbas's Fatah forces in 2007 ...". You rightly state that Hamas won the general election so Hamas did not "seize" anything. Your point about Fatah is superfluous anyway so just stick to the facts - " Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people in democratic elections held in 2006." That is the truth. The power struggle that followed the democratic election of Hama is another issue entirely.
flyer said on 2009-01-19 @ 16:50 NZDT: Report abusive post
Whew, a ceasefire of sorts - obviously the protest of the southland cafe owner against Israeli women has brought everyone to the negotiating table - AS IF.....
farhatmirza said on 2009-01-19 @ 11:42 NZDT: Report abusive post
Dear Sir/Madam, To say that Israel funded Hamas looks improbable, if not ridiculous. However, I won't be surprised if Hamas took a cue of two from Hagana, Irgun, or Lehi. Regards, fjm
philipmcc said on 2009-01-19 @ 10:01 NZDT: Report abusive post
I feel sad enough about the Gaza protagonists each claiming that they are the 'good guys' and the others are the 'bad guys', and the suffering that creates. But as I read these comments I see the same human tendency being acted out. So many claim that their view is 'right' and the others are 'wrong'. This stance is a major factor in all conflict. While that fear-based tendency persists we will go on having wars like Gaza.