Getting Into Gaza
I have avoided expressing any discontent over Israel’s refusal to allow foreign reporters into the Gaza strip. I watched Shep put pressure on Prime Minister Olmert’s spokesman. I listen to the BBC lead off each Newscast and introduce each report with a mantra: “Day XX and independent reporters are denied access to the Gaza strip.” I have heard Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon tell a room full of reporters “Go to Egypt and come up through their border,” knowing full well, the no man’s land just North of the Egyptian border is the target of the most intense bombing of this campaign in the effort to shut the tunnels.
I stayed quiet for two reasons: 1) You get into a funny ethical area when you start using your airways, columns or blogs as the bully pulpit to achieve your means. 2) I stood a better chance of actually getting in and serving our audience by taking a non-adversarial stance and trying to find a hole in the dam that would get me in. To some extent, I was successful. I am one of few reporters who got into the Gaza strip with the Israeli forces; something I was reminded of when asking questions today.
But let’s be honest. By going in with the Israeli forces, I did get a new perspective: That of the Israeli forces. However, those soldiers made it clear, if someone were to appear on the landscape of scorched earth that the IDF has laid down in Gaza, he or she would be assumed to be a hostile and killed. I could not get the perspective of Palestinian Civilians. No one can. For that matter no one is able to scout out a Hamas leader and ask the questions: Why don’t you stop shooting rockets? Why don’t you draw the fight out of the city and save civilians?
The prime minister’s spokesman, Mark Regev, told Dion Nissenbaum with Mcclatchy Newspapers, reporters are not being allowed into the Gaza strip because “Hamas is making sure the pictures coming out of Gaza suit its propaganda needs.” That is simply a propaganda-motivated statement with no basis in recent history.
In the south of Lebanon, we know that Hizbollah did bully reporters. Gunmen collected their passports and threatened to do worse if images were relayed that Hizbollah didn’t approve. But in more than a half decade in which I have been in and out of the Gaza strip Hamas has never attempted to intimidate me or manipulate my reports. Certainly, leaders have tried to spin the message during an interview or even angrily refused to talk to me. But that’s the news game and the techniques considered fair play.
So, I got Mark Regev on the phone. Here is a clip from my notes from that exchange:
Regev: Hamas is manipulating the pictures. The pictures coming out are very selective. Why is it that we have not seen a single picture of a dead Hamas fighter? Why is it that we haven’t seen a picture of a single injured Hamas fighter? Only women and children.
Tobin: I can’t answer that until I get on the ground.
Regev: I understand and your point is well taken.
Fox News operates through an office in Gaza city called the Gaza Media Center or GMC. There are a number of employees in GMC who act as freelance producers, cameramen and stringers when my colleagues or I work in Gaza. We have a microwave link in that office through which we send pictures and information back to Jerusalem and out to you in your home. Today, the room, which houses that microwave link, was hit. It is impossible to tell if it was an air strike, artillery or tank fire. Two of the employees of GMC were injured. Ayman Al Rozi was struck in the head by debris and Mohammed Sousi took shrapnel in his hand. They both survived, were treated and released from the hospital.
The microwave link was destroyed and our ability to get independent pictures out of the Gaza strip severely hampered. By contrast, Hamas took a lesson from Hizbollah during the 2006 war and built redundancies into their Al Aqsa television network. Al Aqsa is up and broadcasting uninhibited.
The story of rockets raining down on Sderot: we’ve covered it. The fact that Israel pulled out of the Gaza strip with the intention of reducing friction with Palestinians and giving them their own plot of land: covered. Hamas firing rockets at Israel with the intention of drawing Israel back into the fight: did it. Panicked children running to shelters in schools: the public got that. Israeli soldiers risking their lives in combat to stop the rocket fire: check. Half a million people caught in the crossfire with no escape route from Gaza city: Uncovered.
Mideast Correspondent Mike Tobin has provided on-site coverage from the Israeli-Lebanese border during the conflict in the Middle East. He also covered Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharons hospitalization in Jerusalem, the evacuation of Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip, the Iraqi elections in Baghdad and Operation Iraqi Freedom from Centcom in Doha, Qatar. 
Thank you Mike for your honesty; so far you have done an excellent job at bringing us the truth in that conflict and not the propaganda of one side or the other. I wish there were more objective point of views like yours on your channel…
Guillaume
A citizen of Israel had an interview with a sweet young Israeli woman whose home had been hit by a Qassam rocket a year ago.
The rocket went right through the roof into her house. Most of her family didn’t make it to a shelter in time, as they only had 15 seconds to take cover. Her story brought chills to my spine. She mentioned that it was a nightmare you never want to go through. In fact, part of her experience is already blacked out of her memory. She cannot remember everything, but when she gained consciousness after the attack, she saw that the house was destroyed.
Most of her family had suffered minor burns, which was a miracle in itself. The parents were already physically handicapped. All of her brothers and sisters were displaced and sheltered in an army facility for eight months until some of the house had been restored. The outside still has a long way to go.
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I’ll never forget her comment that living with the threat of incoming rockets is like a game of Russian roulette – you either live or die. Imagine … more than 10,000 rockets and mortars have been launched into southern Israel in the past eight years. Just think – the tragic story of the woman above happened last year … and there are many, many more accounts just like hers, with families and individuals suffering incredible loss!
The stress of life, the collateral damage, the emotional strain, the sight of the wounded and those who die, the loss of homes and loved ones – it is all more than one can even imagine!
In the current war in Gaza, at least seven Israeli schools have been hit and damaged by Hamas rockets. Children are bedwetting and afraid to return to schools.
The Israelis have lived with 9/11’s every day of their lives for years!
It is high time that the UN and other nations helped put a stop to the terror on the Israeli citizens instead of “beating them up” for defending themselves.
The Israelis have taken in anti-Israel victims to their hospitals and saved their lives only to be turned on by those “victims”.
Have you noticed that hamas only releases pictures of men and women and children crying and being “victimized”.
Hamas is portraying the men of the area as ball babies. Why don’t those men turn around and stand up for themselves and kick hamas out? Then the killing would stop.
If the news media was responsible they would not pick up any pictures coming out from hamas as they are propaganda.
Why doesn’t the news media show the disaster and lives of the Israelis when innocent citizens are bombed and homes destroyed over the many years?
I support israel for its legitimatee self defence.
I agree with Jims’ assessment. The situation in Gaza will not end until the Palistinian population grows some backbone, says “ENOUGH” and tells Hamas to get out, like the Iraqis’ did with Al Qaeda.
I feel bad for the civilian population in Gaza, but, until they speak out and stop playing the victim, this will continue.
As for this “Cease-fire” idea brokerd by Egypt. It’s all well and good, if Hamas stops the rockets. I don’t believe it will, though.
I’m not a “WAR MONGER”, but, if Israel accepts this accord, they should stipulate that if Hamas fires just one rocket they will level Gaza. Israel doesn’t want war with their neighbors. They just want to live in peace, but, will do what must be done to protect their citizens.
Agree with Scotty. Great reporting from Mike Tobin. Also wish we had more reporters of his caliber on Fox News. Many make mistakes in their reporting on Israel….dumb mistakes but Tobin is always 100% right on. We trust his accuracy. It is always the person striking back after taking a low blow that gets the blame. The world seems blind to what Hammas does. This must be willful because nobody can be that stupid.
To Jim, Scott and Ann,
How can you expect anyone to have sympathy for that Israeli woman whose family all it out alive, while you ignore the hundreds of Palestinian families that were ruthlessly murdered. There is no moral equivalence between a rude wake up call and the loss of a dozen souls from a single family. Any attempt at relating the two is deeply immoral.
Mike Tobin quotes, “Hamas is making sure the pictures coming out of Gaza suit its propaganda needs.”
And then Tobin goes on to say,
That is simply a propaganda-motivated statement with no basis in recent history.
But 2 years ago, Muslim radicals shamed a Chaffey College campus, Rancho Cucamonga, with a “Palistinian Wall,” having been erected to show pictures of dead babies and blame it on Israel. And guese which wall these radicals demanded to be shut down? The Gaza borders, which the Israelis have put up to keep Hamas out. Think before you make claims, Tobin.
i agree with all the comments, thank you mike tobin, and fox news for reporting it as it is, unfortunately, the world right now has a hard time looking truth in the eye, thumbs up to those who are, itll get you places in life.