Bisan Owda, a young Palestinian journalist, activist and filmmaker from Gaza, deserves the highest accolades for the excellent work she has done in the past 11 months to expose the realities of Israel’s genocidal war on her people. From the very beginning, she has been a reliable, informative and trustworthy voice from the ground in a conflict that killed more journalists than any other in recent memory.
At significant personal risk, she reports on the plight of the tens of thousands of children who have become orphans in Gaza. She sheds light on the extensive destruction wrought by the advanced weaponry supplied to Israel by the Biden administration. Despite Israel’s best efforts to hide the truth, she shows the world how Palestine is undergoing another Nakba.
As such, I am delighted that she has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the “Outstanding Hard News Feature Story” category with the short documentary she made for AJ titled “It’s Bisan From Gaza and I’m Still Alive”. The poignant and incisive eight-minute feature follows her journey as she is forced to leave her home in Gaza City and displaced numerous times amid Israel’s continuing assault on the Strip.
Regrettably, almost immediately after the announcement of her nomination, defenders of Israel’s war – and its simultaneous assault on journalism – embarked on a campaign to prevent Owda from receiving the recognition she deserves for the exemplary work she managed to do under the most difficult conditions.
First, an Israeli communication consultant accused Owda of being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – a left-wing Palestinian political movement that is designated a “terrorist organisation” by several Western countries, including the United States – a charge she denies. This led high-profile pro-Israeli accounts on social media to attack her journalism as terror propaganda and condemn her Emmy........