No way out of Gaza for ARD employees For over two months, ARD has been working to secure the departure of Palestinian employees from the Gaza Strip, with the support of the German government. However, the Israeli authorities are opposed to this. In order for German media to report on the situation and the war events in the Gaza Strip, they need Palestinian colleagues. They take photos, film, and conduct interviews, which are incorporated into the reports – including the coverage from the ARD studio in Tel Aviv.
Mohammad Abu Saif is one of those journalists working in the Gaza Strip. He has been working for ARD for several years, and now the conditions are very difficult: After 112 days of war in the Gaza Strip, his situation is very bad, he reports. He fears for his life every day.
Currently, he lives in a tent in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled before the hostilities. Sometimes he spends the night in his car.
Mohammad Abu Saif has already been evacuated eight times, and now he doesn’t know where to go anymore. This is the situation for many people in the Gaza Strip. According to the United Nations, the Gaza Strip has over 25,000 deaths, more than 63,000 injuries, and around 1.7 million internally displaced persons. Fear for his life – and fear of Hamas
But for Mohammad Abu Saif and his colleagues, Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip, life has become particularly dangerous. He has already been injured in an airstrike, luckily only slightly. According to a count by the Committee to Protect Journalists, 83 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Gaza war so far.
Mohammad Abu Saif also fears for his life. He is terrified of being killed by the Israeli forces. And he is also afraid of being targeted by Hamas, with whom he has had problems in the past. After all, he has been working for ARD, a German media outlet, for over two years – and Germany has clearly positioned itself on Israel’s side in this war.
He talks about people in the Gaza Strip who do not want to be near him: They are afraid of being targeted alongside him. Mohammad Abu Saif lives in constant fear of being the next journalist to be killed in the Gaza Strip.