Unstable Host Ilana Levinson spent two months trying to reach one of her contacts in Gaza for an interview. She had kept in touch with Isam Hammad, a manager at a medical equipment company in Gaza City, since covering his work organizing the March of Return protest in 2018. But after he fled the city in November , the two had not shared much else. than an occasional WhatsApp voice note between them.
When Levinson finally managed to reach Hammad in January, he was in Rafah, trying to get his family to Ireland on a family reunification visa. “I don't have internet,” he said. “I have had to wake up every night since I made my (visa) application and go to the roof, turn on Vodafone Egypt, connect to the internet, check the list and go back to sleep.”
Levinson and his co-producers spent years building relationships with peace activists from Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. They are now in the position of having access to people on the ground who can give frank accounts of what is happening, access that has been increasingly difficult to obtain as the war continues with no end in sight. This is especially true in Gaza, where foreign journalists are prohibited from entering without Israel Defense Forces escort, connectivity is spotty at best, and more than 1.7 million people have been displaced from their homes.
“There is a real need right now.”
“I think after October 7, people really craved these personal stories and their context,” Levinson said. “We feel a real obligation to those new and existing listeners; there's a real need right now.”
For the media, maintaining access to Gaza has been a challenge, both due to limited communications within the region and strict limitations on physical entry from outside.
Daniel Estrin, NPR's international correspondent in Israel, reported from Gaza many times during his tenure at NPR. But since the start of the war, his access has been reduced to occasional IDF-guided tours just across the border. A Gaza-based colleague, reporter and photographer. Anas Babashares beads and sound from inside the enclave, but Baba has to navigate the same communications blackouts as everyone else.
As a board member of the Israel Foreign Press Association, Estrin participated in a petition sent to Israel's Supreme Court demanding access to Gaza. “This war is unprecedented in the amount of time that Israel has prevented journalists from independently entering a war zone,” Estrin said. The request was denied.
Even within Israel it can be difficult to get people to talk. History of Israel, known as the Israeli This American lifeIt typically operates as a seasonal narrative program produced in English and Hebrew that sticks to decidedly apolitical themes such as buses and cows. But after October 7, the program accelerated, sending its producers to all corners of the country to gather people's perspectives. The result has been war diaries, a collection of more than four dozen episodes featuring Israeli citizens affected by war. They include stories from an archaeologist who searched the ruins of Kibbutz Nir Oz, a Druze journalist fighting for equal rights for his people inside Israel, and a resident of a settlement in Gaza who dreams of returning.
Many Israeli Arabs are afraid to speak in public amid a state crackdown on freedom of expression.
The series struck a chord with American Jewish listeners in particular who want to feel connected to Israel during this crisis. Downloads for History of Israel have tripled since before the war, and host Mishy Harman and senior producer Yochai Maital began hosting live shows in the US earlier this month.
But the program has had difficulty getting Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 percent of Israel's population, to agree to participate in the program. war diaries series. Harman says many are afraid to speak openly amid a state crackdown on speech that has targeted Israeli Arabs in particular.
“I think we've earned a reputation for being honest brokers. However, I think we really don't live up to that reputation at this time,” Harman said. “Here we are really telling an Israeli (Jewish) story.”
The challenge has put emphasis on media outlets that were already well established in the region. Al Jazeera, which had staff in the Gaza Strip before the war, has become a leading source for audiences in the United States and Europe because of its established access, access that has been endangered by a recent ban within Israel as a result of the outlet's report. has also pushed The takeAl Jazeera's daily news podcast, in the spotlight.
“Right now, people are really paying attention.”
“With the lack of access, Al Jazeera is this eye on Gaza. “That puts a lot of responsibility on everyone's shoulders,” he said. The take Executive producer Alex Locke. “What are you going to do with that lens? And how are you going to digest that in a podcast?
The program has shifted most of its coverage to the war, featuring dispatches from Al Jazeera reporters about the increasingly dire humanitarian and security situation in the enclave. And while most of Al Jazeera's audience consumes their news via television or the website, The takeThe team at focuses on what audio alone can offer.
“When you're listening while you're on your commute or washing dishes, and then you stop because you hear tears or you hear what an air raid sounds like, there's something so powerful about that, that no image can even encompass. ,” saying The take presenter Malika Bilal.
Other podcasts have solved the lack of access. NPR Direct line, a series that frames current events within a historical context, has seen a surge in viewership around episodes that thoughtfully explore topics such as the rise of Israel's right-wing and the origins of Hamas. “It is often necessary to look at something from a 360-degree perspective, which requires potentially taking a step back and covering the same moment from different points of view,” said co-host Rund Abdelfatah.
Audio war reporting is a centuries-old practice, but programs accessible today can have an even greater impact thanks to podcasting's global reach. At the time Unstable relayed Hammad's story in January, he was hitting a wall to get his wife and five children out of Gaza. Because his son is an Irish citizen, there was an avenue to obtain a family reunification visa for some, but not all, of his family members.
Hammad shared on the podcast that his son in Ireland has cerebral palsy. This resonated with a listener in Ireland who also has a child with a non-verbal disability. After hearing the episode, she contacted Hammad, lobbied local politicians and worked with the Irish government to remove him and his family in March. They are now together in Dublin, waiting until it is safe to return to Gaza.
“For a long time, it hasn't felt like people are paying attention to what's going on in Israel and Palestine,” Levinson said. “Right now, people are really paying attention and I'm overwhelmed that it's possible for journalism to have this kind of impact.”
