Un Ponte Per joins the petition launched by ReCommon to demand that Eni immediately stop its agreement with Delek Group, one of Israel's largest energy companies, which is on the UN blacklist of companies operating in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
The petition has already been signed by the following Italian civil society organisations: Greenpeace Italia, Friday for Future Italia, FOCSIV, A Sud, Scomodo, Rinascimento Green, Coordinamento nazionale No Triv, BDS Italia, Presidio Libera Potenza 'Elisa Claps e Francesco Tammone', Cova Contro, Teachers for Future Italia, L.E.A Berta Cáceres, WWF Potenza and internal areas, Paesaggi Meridiani, Comitato per la Pace Potenza and Un Ponte Per.
Last April, the six-legged dog signed a merger agreement between its UK subsidiary and the British Ithaca Energy, 89% owned by Delek Group. The synergy with Ithaca Energy aims to produce over 100,000 barrels of oil per day in the North Sea in the short term and over 150,000 by 2030. Yet another confirmation of the company's desire to continue with its fossil 'business as usual' to the detriment of the climate and the environment, in this case aggravated by its relationship with a company, Ithaca Energy, whose 2023 proceeds, over 350 million dollars, have been transferred almost entirely to Delek Group, complicit in the violation of the rights of the Palestinian people.
Delek Group provides services to support the maintenance of the Israeli settlements and, also in the settlements, uses natural resources, particularly water and land, for commercial purposes. Recently, evidence has emerged showing that the Delek Group has links to the Israeli army. Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) vehicles have been able to refuel at hundreds of petrol stations owned by Delek Israel, another of Delek Group's subsidiaries.
"Eni has a strong business relationship with a company that is in fact helping to finance the war in the Middle East," said ReCommon's Eva Pastorelli. "This is why we feel it is right for Italian civil society to make its voice heard and ask our country's main multinational to break this controversial link. No economic interest can justify perpetuating a conflict that has already claimed tens of thousands of victims and whose end is currently not in sight,' Pastorelli concluded.
In a context of war, taking care of the environment is not a matter of course. Instead, since2012, the new institutions of theautonomous administration of North East Syria have beenbased on the principles of democraticconfederalism, gender equality andecology.
Years of conflict have resulted not only in the destruction of cities and the displacement of entire populations, but also inanacute environmental crisis."During sandstorms, in the desert areas one sees real clouds of waste, especially plastic bags, floating in the air," explains Roberta, Un Ponte Per's Environmental Programmes Desk. "The waste is mainly piled up and burned in open dumps, most of which are not up to standard, with very serious consequences on the health of the communities, already unfortunately affected by the conflict that has now lasted more than adecade.
Since 2022, in collaboration with the Kurdish Red Crescent (KRC) and with the support of theBarcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) and the ProsolidarFoundation , we have been supporting the first municipal'door-to-door' wastecollection and recycling system forsolid urbanwaste, launchedby the municipality of Hasakeh, together with the Directorate of theEnvironment .The project involves the citizenship both through regular meetings withkominrepresentatives (on a neighbourhood basis) and through various awareness-raising campaigns organised in the involved neighbourhoods, schools and universities. Between April 2023 and March 2024, more than 5,462 people were directly involved in awareness-raising activities on the subject of environmental health and the effects of pollution on health, the 3Rs principle - reduce, reuse, recycle - and the new waste separation and recycling system set up by the municipality.
Awareness-raising campaign in a primary school in Hasakeh
The system currently involves three komin (Nos. 4, 7 and 8) and theAl-Hal market, one of the largest fruit and vegetable markets in the city of Hasakeh, with a total of 996 private homes and 303shops, restaurants or offices involved in the recycling system. During the period between April 2023 and March 2024, 16,158 kg of organic waste, 3,056 kg of plastic, 3,476 kg of cardboard and 118.35 kg of metals were collected and diverted from landfill .
Distribution of materials for "door-to-door" waste collection in Hasakeh
So much support is certainly still needed to be able to expand the system to all districts of the city and ensure its fulleconomic and technicalself-sustainability, but it is a very important first step towards building a future based on fewer public health risks, greater environmental sustainability, and hopefully alsoregional peace.
It was 2012 when we at Un Ponte Per, who had already been working in Iraq for years, began our journey alongside the thousands of people crossing the border into Syria at the time, fleeing a war that no one could imagine would last so long.
At the time we were among the few NGOs in the country, and we responded to that emergency by going to the border and directing the arriving people to the humanitarian assistance services that the Kurdish government in the north of the country was already setting up. Soon thereafter, 10 camps would be opened to receive refugees, in which we would immediately start work. First by trying to understand the needs of the people who had arrived from Syria. Then, choosing to work with them to provide psychological support to those who were carrying the trauma of the conflict: inAugust 2013, there were already 220,000 Syrians in Iraq, 90% of whom were refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan. Right from the start we realised that psychological assistance was not considered a priority, although it was a central need.
Lia Pastorelli, Program Desk of Un Ponte Per, who has followed the programme for many years, tells us this long story.
"At the end of 2012, we obtained funding from UNHCR to intervene in this area, and immediately started working with the Directorate of Health in Dohuk and Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to provide training for local staff, distribution of medicines, individual and group counselling, and psychological assistance for children and girls," he tells us.
"We do this thanks to the supervision of our psychiatrist, Paolo Feo, who builds specific training to offer support especially to minors. The staff working with us is mostly Syrian: many people who arrived from Syria had a background in psychology, but their qualifications were not recognised by the local authorities. However, by putting themselves at the service of their communities with the desire to help them, they have contributed in a fundamental way to the work we have carried out over the past 10 years.We also realised that the general approach was very much focused on medicalisation: the Syrian staff was instrumental in encouraging a different therapy, more based on dialogue, which only resorted to medicines when strictly necessary,' Lia explains.
"There has been a great focus on children and adolescents, through the technical supervision of specialised personnel and following programmes structured by UNHCR.This has allowed us to base our work on scientific evidence and to appreciate important changes thanks to very precise evaluation and monitoring systems,' he emphasises.
Lia remembers well that most of the problems concerned cases of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress.For the children, on the other hand, there was nocturnal enuresis, aggression, difficulty in concentrating. "All this was mitigated through resilience groups, play therapy, leisure activities designed for them," he says. "We also worked a lot on training the teachers within the camps, so that they would recognise the children who needed more structured support," she explains.
Today, there are over 260,000 refugees from Syria in Iraq. 90% of them live in Iraqi Kurdistan: 40% are still in camps, the others have moved to urban areas. "We have also worked in the cities to accompany their integration into the social fabric and to guarantee access to care and psychological support, a right that many of them did not even know they had," Lia recounts.
The best thing about these years of work has been to see the positive impact. "Seventy per cent of the people who have benefited from our support have been women. Over time we saw them and the refugee community change: they realised that mental health is a right, that this support was not something to be ashamed of.And we received consistently very positive evaluations of our intervention," she explains.
In fact, over 90% of the people we have accompanied over the years have said they have experienced relief of their symptoms. Levels of anxiety and stress have decreased, interactions between the children and their families have improved, aggression has decreased. "There remains of course the challenge of being a refugee, of not feeling they belong to the host community, the lack of access to economic opportunities, which continue to have a major impact and remains a heavy legacy of any conflict," Lia acknowledges.
But the most important achievement, probably, 'was that we managed to work for so many years with Syrian staff who never changed, without wasting the skills we had acquired and relying on their expertise.I think of our colleague Rashad, a psychology graduate from Damascus who fled the war and wanted to help his community in every way,' Lia recalls. "His degree, however, was not recognised in Kurdistan. He worked with us as a counsellor for years, and we finally managed to get his degree recognised by UNHCR.It was a wonderful achievement for him, but also for us.
In 2023, then, our work came to an end. In 10 years, we managed to support 250,000 people and provide psychological support to another 23,000.
Together with UNHCR, we chose to transfer all the intervention to our colleagues from 'Wchan - Organisation for victims of human rights violations', a local Kurdish-Iraqi NGO, which now carries on the support for refugees. "The work continues, but our support is no longer needed," Lia says with satisfaction.
Long hair hides a little girl's face. The small pencil is clenched between her tiny fingers as she draws a dove. This is the subject chosen by Gianluca Costantini, artist and illustrator, for the new Un Ponte Per card he donated to us.
A dreamlike subject that portrays a peaceful future restored by the hands of the new generations. 'Maybe it's just a dream, as the world is heading towards a state of semi-permanent war, with a constant narrowing of human rights,' Gianluca tells us the morning we meet him. Genocide is taking place in Palestine and it is difficult to talk about anything else. "But let's start at the beginning. In 1993, Joe Sacco's graphic novel 'Palestine, an Occupied Nation' came out and immediately became a classic. It was a work that undoubtedly influenced Costantini's artistic career, which began that very year, at the end of the Academy. "I was inspired by the power of those things there, the big collective stories like the Palestinian one. I loved Joe Sacco very much. I even organised an exhibition dedicated to him in our country'. Over the years, Gianluca chose to use his art to side with the last people and those fighting for human rights. He became what is known as an artist-activist, "a definition that suits me because, as Gramsci said, 'every manifestation of art is political' and I come from the art of collectives, from self-production for a militant public". Over time, Gianluca moves from large community narratives to personal stories, which become emblematic of larger causes. The graphic stroke becomes essential, the texts reduced to short evocative captions, and the power of the message certainly gains. His works make viral the faces of activism that resists regimes and the deprivation of rights and freedoms. He draws, among others, Giulio Regeni, Patrick Zaki, Julian Assange, becoming very popular on social media and often ending up in the eye of the storm. He will be accused of anti-Semitism by the American right for a cartoon on Netanyahu and of terrorism by the Turkish government.
Gianluca Costantini holding the new Un Ponte Per card
'Obviously I regret not being able to travel to some countries any more,' he says, 'but I guess that's part of the game somehow. The accusations of anti-Semitism hurt the most: they are one of the worst things for human rights activists. However, I believe that in a world ruled by a committee of businessmen and warmongers, art has a duty to try to break through the hypocrisy of the powerful,' he explains. Thus, Gramsci's curls and glasses become the distinctive features of the face of Zaki, an Egyptian activist symbol of resistance to repression, who was only freed at the end of a major global campaign. "I am happy that Patrick is OK. My work ended the day he was freed and he was able to return to Italy. Unfortunately, I don't think a similar fate will befall Assange". Assange, Wikileaks and the western wars on Iraq, one of the reasons why Gianluca is siding with Un Ponte Per: "I knew your 30 years of work in Iraq, alongside its people who have paid a heavy price for the madness of war. It is incredible that those who committed these atrocities never ended up on trial, while those like Assange who revealed their crimes are imprisoned and considered a public enemy,' he adds. Turning his thoughts back to Gaza, today Gianluca is dedicating a series of portraits to Palestinian journalists killed after 7 October (at the time of the interview there were about 80, ed.). "A disaster for the truth. They were brave people, direct witnesses, brutally silenced so that they would not tell what they had seen. They will not be able to contribute to building a shared truth. A truth that will be missing in Gaza," he concludes.
Creating a safe place to meet and discuss, to learn more about one's rights, to discuss. It is with this aim that we have imagined our 'Conversation Clubs', which we have recently activated in Jordan as part of our 'Masahat Amina' (Safe Spaces) project, dedicated to vulnerable women and girls. Funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), the work we carry out targets particularly vulnerable people between the refugee community in the country and the host community.
In the country, we at Un Ponte Per have been working for many years. We have always focused on supporting the Syrian refugee community, but also the host community, in an attempt to create harmony and social cohesion, targeting in particular women, girls and people with disabilities.
The aim of our work in the country has always been to encourage the social inclusion and participation of the most vulnerable people: over the years, we have achieved wonderful results, such as the opening of an Italian pizzeria run by refugees, or a café run by people with disabilities. Our aim has always been to fight the stigmatisation of people with disabilities, and in particular of women, to support them on their path to self-determination and independence.
With the same objective in mind, we imagined the 'Conversation Clubs': spaces dedicated to them for a serene, safe, protected confrontation.
Last February, Huda Nijem, a psychologist and our long-time collaborator, together with the local organisations we have been working with for many years, started to organise 'Conversation Clubs' for 160 women and girls with disabilities from different areas of Jordan: Amman, Russeyfah, Dhleyl and Irbid. Each week, for a total of 8 meetings in each area, the Clubs offer women and girls with different types of disabilities the opportunity to learn about their rights and discuss protection-related topics, such as stigma, discrimination, violence and mental health, in a safe and prejudice-free space.
Together with them, the people who care for these women and girls also participate, thus helping to create a network that feeds on shared experiences and stories.
The clubs create a network of solidarity for the participants who can confront their opinions, discuss their feelings and share their personal experiences, thus building a protected environment.So far, the meetings have been a success: the participants have enjoyed sharing activities and have shown a greater awareness of their rights and their role in society.
Thirteen years have passed since the beginning of the Syrian crisis. What has long been considered the region's main humanitarian emergency is now seeing a crisis in funding and international support from humanitarian actors, who remain on the ground amidst many difficulties in addressing the needs of a population that remains in need of support, healthcare, and development.
This is also the case in the north-east area of Syria, where Un Ponte Per has been working tirelessly since 2015, thanks to the support of international donors such as the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), and thanks to the work of its local partners, including the Kurdish Red Crescent (KRC). Here, there are still numerous camps housing people who have been displaced since the beginning of the fighting in the country, and due to repeated offensives launched by Turkey over the years. Often established as informal settlements in remote areas of the country, difficult to reach and far from the main cities, over time they have become camps that are now supported by non-governmental organisations to ensure access to health, education and protection for the displaced population.
These include the Abo Khashab camp, established in 2017 in the Deir Ez-Zor area, which now houses more than 10,000 people who have fled both the Syrian conflict and Turkish incursions into the area. Established as an informal settlement, it was soon joined by humanitarian actors, including Un Ponte Per, in an attempt to build a system of basic humanitarian support and assistance. Here, the majority of the people sheltered are women, and 70% are minors.
Thanks to ECHO's support, Un Ponte Per and KRC were able to build a stable clinic in the camp, which is now able to handle emergencies 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and is equipped with an ambulance system capable of reaching the nearest hospitals. Equipped with all the necessary equipment, and stocked with medicines that are distributed free of charge, the clinic provides care for chronic diseases and internal medicine services, but has also focused on women and children: gynaecology and paediatrics services (including child malnutrition screening) are provided free of charge, and emergency cases such as recurring outbreaks of leishmaniasis are handled.
"In these years of work in Abo Khashab camp, we have met so many stories and so many people," says Maria Toran Carpio, Project Manager of the project "Life-saving and life-sustaining health assistance to the war-affected population in NES", supported by ECHO and now in its seventh year. "Like Yazi, a very courageous displaced woman who has been a great inspiration to us all.A year ago, she faced serious health problems," says Maria. "Although her condition was really very complex, the KRC team managed to support her in an extraordinary way. Recognising the seriousness of the situation early on, the team managed to direct her to the most appropriate specialist medical facility, where she was accompanied towards recovery.Today, her condition has improved a lot, she continues to refer to our clinic and staff in the camp where she is monitored weekly," he explains.
A happy ending is also what we managed to secure for Yassin, a 10-year-old girl who suffered very severe burns on 75 per cent of her body from an accident. In this case too, it was the KRC team, together with Un Ponte Per, that tried to find the best solution to ensure she received the specialist care she needed. "Yassin underwent several surgeries," Toran Carpio recalls, "and the dedication of the medical team in Abo Khashab, in cooperation with the local hospitals, was unparalleled. A month ago, she was finally able to return to school, resuming her path of study and growth.Her story reminds us how crucial it is to continue to stand by the Syrian people and not forget them'.
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Music video by Bensound.com/royalty-free-music
License code: LEGVDR3JB5M8HQOF
Photo credits: Pierluigi Giorgi; www.facebook.com/wchan.org
The youth population in Jordan suffers from a high unemployment rate that also creates social tension among the young people. In an attempt to bridge the gap between their education and the job offer, Un Ponte Per launched the 'Furas' (Opportunities) project at the end of 2022, thanks to the valuable support of Otto per Mille funds from the Waldensian Church. Targeting mainly vulnerable youth, and in particular refugee communities from Syria, Iraq and Palestine, the aim of the project was to facilitate access to the world of work for young people through vocational training, which was constantly accompanied by peace-building activities, dialogue, psycho-social support, with the dual objective of overcoming stereotypes and discrimination.
Aimed in particular at young people with disabilities and vulnerable people, aged between 15 and 30, we have tried through trainings and meetings to support them in developing technical and vocational skills.
Started in November 2022, 'Furas' has now reached its conclusion with excellent results, providing the necessary protection and development opportunities to over 1,230 young people, and over 1,000 relatives and family members.
In September 2023, we prepared and launched the vocational training courses, selecting 20 trainees between the ages of 18 and 30, prioritising the provision of opportunities to people with disabilities, who were over 50% of the total number of participants, Jordanians, Syrians, Iraqis and Palestinians, fostering an environment where diversity was celebrated and embraced. All of them successfully completed the course and were then included in practical training in different workplaces.
We then focused on enhancing the skills acquired: participants moved from classroom learning to real-world application by engaging in a month-long training programme, which led to guaranteed employment contracts in several local organisations.
Thanks to the cooperation with the local partner Athar for Youth Development Association, we were also able to start 'Conversation Clubs': safe spaces for young people aged between 15 and 18, where in addition to being trained on peacebuilding and overcoming stereotypes and discrimination, they were able to receive support and psycho-social assistance.
Through educational, recreational and training activities, the educators provided psycho-social support and a hotline service for women, girls, men and boys. In collective dialogue sessions, topics chosen by them were addressed, including conflict resolution, respect for human rights, and combating bullying and discrimination that many still face on a daily basis.
The main objective was to provide participants with tools to resolve conflicts with their peers, to develop self-defence and positive reaction mechanisms, to use differences between them as a resource, to promote social cohesion between communities, to be aware of their own rights and the rights of people with disabilities without adopting discriminatory attitudes.
According to our partner, these activities were absolutely necessary in a context that lacks training on these topics and spaces where young people feel free to express themselves.
Finally, thanks to the collaboration with local mental health experts, it was also possible to provide individual and group counselling by accompanying survivors or those at risk of Gender Based Violence (GBV), women at risk of sexual and physical harassment and abuse or lack of resources; as well as children at risk and victims of child labour and exploitation due to family socio-economic conditions.
All young people who participated in our training courses then received a certificate and attended a final event.
Stories of struggle and community care - The interviews
Sradicatə is a series of articles that aims to explore in depth the intricate links between the climate crisis and migration. An essential part of our approach has been to focus on target countries - Italy, Iraq, Tunisia - as we believe it is crucial to seek the perspectives of those actively involved in the direct management of the climate crisis and its consequences.
In particular, we wanted to delve into the personal stories ofthe people interviewed in relation to the climate crisis, recognising that their direct experiences can offer a fundamental key to understanding the complex dynamics of this global phenomenon. We focused on three main aspects:
The first section gathers valuable information on some aspects of the participants' life journey;
the second, the segment on the activist's work, was designed with the aim of gathering detailed information on their experience of activism and personal involvement in dealing with the climate crisis;
finally, the section on climate crisis and migration, whose specific focus explores participants' perceptions and concerns on these crucial issues. The conclusions drawn from the responses provide us with a valuable perspective on the dynamic relationship between the climate crisis and migration. snsdbsdjfsdjjsjdnjsdjdjdjdjdjnnfnjfnjfnjfnjfnjfjfnjnvjnjndjcjcnjcjcjcjcjcjcsjscjsj dsk
If in the first phase (below) the Sradicatə column explored in a more general way some key concepts (e.g. the definitions of "climate crisis" and "environmental migrants", the lack of legal norms, etc.), in this second phase the focus has been on the in-depth study of some specific territories: Iraq, Tunisia, Nepal, Peru and Italy, chosen both because they are the countries in which our 2 associations operate and because they are territories strongly affected by the phenomena in question. In these articles, we will focus on some of the issues related to the climate crisis in these countries.
The links between the climate crisis and migration: key concepts
The Sradicatə column is the result of the work carried out within the Universal Civil Service project "Territories and Expendable Bodies", a collaboration between Un Ponte Per and El Comedor Estudiantil Giordano Liva: a series of articles exploring the links between the climate crisis and migration. During this journey we will dwell on the stories, concepts and problems that emerge around this fundamental theme, in an attempt to better understand our world and our contemporary society.
Curated by Giulia Bigongiari, Martina Marcuccetti, Sara Mariani, Alessia Massari, Alessandra Mauceri and Sara Raffaeli.
Un Ponte Per inaugurated a new civil society centre in Baghdad: a space created to provide operational support to local Iraqi organisations throughout the capital's governorate.
"I am very proud ofthis great achievement," said Bahman Qadir, our Iraqi colleague who coordinates the Tatweer project, an ambitious programme we have been running since June 2020.
"After starting the second phase and establishing the centre, we managed to involve more than 50 local organisations in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces. The centre will be a crossroads for the exchange of experiences and good practices between organisations,' Bahman added in the aftermath of the new centre's inauguration. An achievement made possible by the synergy with many local Iraqi partners, such as the organisation Al Mesalla.
Today, Iraqi society is facing a phase of strong contraction of rights, which is why the role of civil society organisations becomes crucial: to bring about change from below, to promote respect for human, social and environmental rights as well as equal participation in community and political life for both men and women.
In order to be more effective, however, local organisations need support, to be able to make their way through the meshes of a complex bureaucracy and build autonomous and horizontal spaces of viability. This external support must be respectful of the country's specific cultural and social processes.
'We want to empower Iraqi civil society organisations to have a greater impact in promoting human, civil and environmental rights; to enable them to respond effectively to the needs of the community, and to collaborate fruitfully with the authorities,' Bahman continues.
Our Iraqi colleague Bahman on a visit to Rome.
"Iraqi organisations in fact need to increase their advocacy capacity, provide adequate space for young people and women in leadership, the opportunity to learn how to operate, and the availability of spaces where they can meet and grow together. With this objective, already in the first phase of the Tatweer project, we opened centres in Erbil, Basra and Mosul. Now finally also in Baghdad,' he tells us.
Open spaces together are safe spaces for exchanges of good practice, meetings, workshops and seminars. In the new space, we have already started an intensive training course for local organisations on good administrative governance, strategic planning, fundraising, and writing proposals to independently access international cooperation funds. In addition, we will be providing a series of legal and expert advice sessions on administrative, logistical and procurement issues, as well as financial and human resources management in the coming months. All this is designed so that Iraqi organisations can stand on their own two feet and our support is no longer needed.
"Our main objective is to support civil society in the creation of realities and structures that represent them to create positive social change, so that they work effectively, transparently, democratically, and with respect for human and labour rights. Since we started, we are succeeding in accompanying so many people,' Bahman concludes with great satisfaction.
According to figures released by Reporters Without Borders, which monitors violations committed against news workers around the world, at least 105 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7 while carrying out their work. However, according to local Palestinian sources, the number is even higher, taking into account the thousands of people still under the rubble or missing, which would reach 130 news workers killed since the beginning of the Israeli military offensive, or 75% of all news workers killed in the whole of 2023.
The alarm is being raised by all the international organisations that monitor press freedom in the world, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which for months has been keeping up the alarm to request international protection for those who, today, are the only witnesses of what is happening in the Gaza Strip.
Already a few weeks after the beginning of the Israeli military operations, the Palestinian Press Syndicate had defined what is happening as a "journalistic murder": Palestinian information workers do not "die" under the bombs, but are killed, and have become a target of the Israeli armed forces.
In a context in which access to the international press is completely denied, Palestinian journalists are the only ones to witness what is happening, and they continue to do their job by reporting live on a genocide that affects them directly. Just think of the price paid by many of them, who are now displaced, who have seen their homes destroyed and their families exterminated: this is the case, among others, of Wael Dahdouh, an Al Jazeera veteran in Gaza, who lost his wife and children, including Hamza Dahdouh, also a journalist, who was killed by a targeted bombing of a press convoy.
In this Instagram video, Wael Dahdouh expressed gratitude to the public after the great solidarity he received in the aftermath of the killing of his son Hamza. A loss that came after that of his wife, brothers and other relatives and colleagues.
Today we celebrate World Press Freedom Day, and our thoughts can only go to Gaza. The place where even the right to inform and be informed is constantly violated.
The ban on international press access to Gaza is indeed a very serious violation of freedom of the press and information in Europe and the West. At the same time, it is crucial to remember the invaluable information work being carried out daily by Gaza journalists, whose voices should be heard and amplified.
"The problem is not that Western journalists cannot enter Gaza," Hossam Shabat, a young Palestinian journalist, wrote recently. "The problem is that we Palestinian journalists are not respected. My colleagues and I risk our lives every day to report on this genocide. Nobody knows Gaza better than we do. If you care about what is happening here, amplify our voice. We don't need Western journalists to tell our stories: we are capable of doing it ourselves'.
Hossam Shabat, in one of many live reports from Gaza
Youmna El Sayed, to whom our friend Rita Petruccioli dedicated the beautiful portrait on the cover for the 'Libere di Rompere' campaign, also told the Manifesto:
"In the West, it is thought that Palestinian journalists must necessarily be affiliated with some political group and therefore cannot be objective. This is ridiculous. When foreign journalists enter Gaza, they do it with the help of a Palestinian fixer, a Palestinian translator. They talk to Palestinian officials and the Palestinian population. Those are considered credible stories, but ours are not'.
Youmna El Sayed, as an Israeli bomb explodes behind her back.
And so, we dedicate this 3rd of May to all the journalists in Gaza. To those who have lost everything, to those who have been killed, to those who after 6 months of uninterrupted massacres continue every day to do their work with professionalism and courage. And we renew our call to amplify their voices, the only direct witnesses of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian population.
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