Tel Aviv, Israel
By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
Israel's logo for its 60th anniversary harks back to the good old days – an innocent boy in shorts romping with a variation of the Israeli flag unfurling behind him.
But you can't please everyone. One orthodox Jewish member of parliament trashed the symbol, saying the child looks "frumpy and should get a haircut."
That could sum up the reservations of many Israelis about their country as its leaders prepare to celebrate its 60th anniversary.
Festivities being met with a yawn President Bush will be coming later in the month for part of the festivities, reportedly with about 800 of his closest friends and bodyguards. And a dozen other leaders from countries as diverse as Rwanda, Burkina Faso and Latvia, will attend too, along with the world's A-list of party stars Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger and Mikhail Gorbachev. Paris Hilton will be absent, to the chagrin of ordinary Israelis, who appear to be treating the party with a yawn.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
At Passover, Jews invite the prophet Elijah into their homes, believing that he will herald the Messiah. Elijah didn’t make it to my place on Saturday, and nor did the Messiah, but Abraham did, along with his friend Angos.
These foreign guests taught my family and friends that while on this holy day we remember the hardships of our ancestors as they fled oppression in Egypt, others face remarkably similar pain today.
Habptom Abraham and Pesfalem Angos, 15-year-old Christians, fled the fighting in the Horn of Africa nation of Eritrea three years ago with one goal – to reach Jerusalem, and their savior, Jesus Christ.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
TEL AVIV, Israel – You would think that Palestinians in Gaza would be upset at Hamas’ provocative stance against Israel, which has brought economic sanctions and contributed to massive unemployment and food and fuel shortages.
It has also brought Israel and the Palestinians closer toward a military confrontation in Gaza that Hamas cannot win.
But instead, polls show that Hamas is tightening its grip on power and growing in popularity. Resistance pays in the polls.
Following a storm of Palestinian rockets, Israel killed 120 Palestinians in Gaza six weeks ago and bought a few weeks of relative calm. Now Hamas is back again, firing rockets and ambushing Israeli soldiers.
In return they got 20 dead Palestinians on Wednesday and provoked yet more threats from Israel that it would launch a major offensive to clean out Gaza of rockets and gunmen.
However, Hamas has about 20,000 trained and well-equipped fighters ready. That means that if Israel were to invade, it would be long, bloody and painful for both sides. But still, Hamas appears to want this to happen
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By Paul Goldman, NBC News Producer
TEL AVIV, Israel – How symbolic could this rehearsal be?
Standing next to one another on stage in Tel Aviv – dancing together and singing in perfect harmony – were the Dar Fur Stars, a band made up of Muslim refugees, and the Jewish group Aharit Hayamim (Redemption).
Ending their practice with both bands playing the theme music from "Schindler’s List," The Dar Fur Stars were preparing to join the Israelis in their celebration of Passover, which begins on Saturday at sundown and commemorates the biblical exodus from Egyptian slavery.
The unique pairing marks the end of a harrowing journey, which began when the twelve narrowly escaped the horrors of genocide in Darfur and eventually snuck through the Egyptian-Israeli border. An Israeli patrol picked them up and imprisoned them for three months.
It turned out that music was the answer to the boredom and misery. Bushra Musa, 34, found himself and his fellow inmates picking up sticks and using old pots as drums. Every night, he recalled, they would gather and play for hours. The seeds of the Dar Fur Stars were planted.
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By Paul Goldman, NBC News Producer
TEL AVIV, Israel – Israelis in desperate need of an organ transplant can now breathe a little easier. A new law passed last week in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) will hopefully help bridge the gulf between Orthodox and secular Jews on the controversial issue of organ donation and help pave the way for more transplants.
An issue which has long been a sticking point in the organ transplant debate in Israel has been the question of when a person is considered to be officially dead. The new law hopes to assuage the concerns of Orthodox Jews by introducing new guidelines for doctors and families to follow if there is an opportunity for a donation.
Despite the change, there is still a great deal of opposition among Orthodox Jews. Beni Moshe, who is number one on the list of people waiting for a new lung, fears it may already be too late for him.
The 46-year-old Moshe, who is married and the father of three, suffers from a severe lung disease which means he is attached to an oxygen tank 24/7.
"I hope the new law will encourage people to donate, I have been waiting since August for a transplant and feel I’m floating between life and death," Moshe told Haaretz newspaper.
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By Karl Bostic, NBC News Producer
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Last week, Gaza was the site of some of the fiercest fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinians in years. Israel ground forces, tanks and helicopters invaded the territory in an attempt to put a halt to the onslaught of rockets being launched from Gaza in to Israel. The clashes resulted in a deadly toll – more than 120 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, and it’s estimated that at least half of the casualties were civilians.
But what really seems to be taking a toll on the people of Gaza is the gradual erosion of daily life. Since the militant group Hamas seized control last June, Israel has imposed restrictions on the flow of people and goods in and out of Gaza which have essentially crippled the economy. Last week a coalition of human-rights groups released a report stating that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip has created the worst humanitarian crisis since its occupation began in 1967.
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| Karl Bostic / NBC News |
| Ismael Terawi with some of his 12 children outside his home in Gaza. |
While reporting from Gaza on the Israeli incursion, we decided to visit the family of Ismael Terawi, a man we profiled two years ago during the election campaign for the Palestinian Authority, to see how he and his family were doing with the new restrictions. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
Working as a foreign correspondent for over 30 years has been an epic journey, in which I have grown from a clueless adventurer into whatever is the kindest description of me today. But in one sense, I’ve gone full circle.
In the old days, in Africa and Asia, NBC News once used one-man-bands: that is, people who shot the pictures with a big camera and recorded the sound, wrote the television story and then recorded radio reports on a separate tape recorder. They produced themselves.
Within a year of joining NBC, that was my job. In time, the team expanded: cameramen, soundmen, producers, correspondents, editors, engineers, fixers, drivers; we traveled to the airport in black limousines chauffeured by stiff-backed men in black suits and caps. We flew first class and became connoisseurs of fine wines. And then the shoe dropped: budgets were slashed.
Today, it’s back to the beginning. Now, one-man-bands are called SoJos, solo journalists: digital journalists who travel with a small camera and a computer. The difference is that in the old days you had to be as strong as a mule to carry the gear. Now, it all fits in a small backpack. And these technical developments give rise to new dilemmas within news organizations, among them – to use heavy gear and four-man crews, or light-weight equipment and fewer people?
The digital era is an exciting and challenging time for journalists, faced with revolutionary new ways to gather news and distribute it. Smaller, lighter equipment and fast broadband connections mean fewer people are needed and more stories can be covered.
But it’s also a risky time. Will media organizations use these developments simply to save money, or to cover more news? Will the old media outfits adapt or will they be replaced by new forms of media? Will the emphasis on SoJos, or even two-man teams, harm the content? Do you even need to send people to cover expensive foreign news, if you can just pick up local television or agency coverage, or even cell phone pictures from citizen journalists? It’s tempting to rely on computers and links to websites and video blogs from citizen journalists.
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By Tom Aspell, NBC News Correspondent
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – A 15-year-old Palestinian boy lay dying today in the intensive care unit of Gaza’s Shifa Hospital. Both his legs had been amputated above the knees after injuries sustained by what the hospital admission center called "an explosive device."
The boy was connected to a respirator, his heart beat was strong, but there was no brain activity and doctors said he probably wouldn’t live long.
There was no frantic activity to try to save his life because the intensive care unit was already overcrowded and doctors were needed to work on patients with a better chance of survival. All of the beds were occupied by young men, all of them unconscious.
When I asked one of the doctors if the unit was equipped to handle so many casualties and if it was short of any supplies, he said, "We need everything."
Israeli offensive
Gaza has just experienced a four-day assault launched by Israel to stop Palestinian militants firing rockets into Israeli territory. CONTINUED >>
By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau Chief
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza – Yusuf Tayem is a victim, yet he is ultimately a story of inspiration. In some ways, he's a victim of his environment – both Palestinian rhetoric and Israeli occupation – which encouraged him to throw stones at Israeli soldiers. All the kids did on the way back from school. In America, kids may ride a skateboard home. In Gaza in 2001, kids threw stones.
One day, the stone-throwing turned especially nasty and an Israeli soldier fired back, shooting Yusuf, who was 12 years old at the time, through the neck, leaving him paralyzed below the waist. That's when we first met him – lying in his bed, pale and weak, saying, although I didn't believe him, that he was glad he could make this sacrifice for Palestine.
That was then. Today, he's also a victim of the Hamas government. He told me that because his family supports secular Fatah, Hamas refused him batteries for his electric wheelchair, although they gave them to their own disabled people.
And that's why Yusuf wasn't able to join the fun at Gaza's border with Egypt, which Hamas fighters blew open a week ago. As many as 700,000 Gazans, half the population, crossed to breathe some freedom, and to go shopping, but Yusuf wasn't among them. He couldn't propel his wheelchair through the sand of the Khan Younis refugee camp.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau Chief
NABLUS, West Bank – It is hard for me to describe Ahmed Sanakreh as a terrorist, although I know it's true. Hard, because I got to know him and his family quite well, and when you understand people, it's hard to hate them: Twenty-year-old Ahmed, baby-faced with black hair sticking up in gelled spikes, and a passion for his Nokia 90 cell phone; and his elder brother, Alaa, the intense, hollow-cheeked leader of the Palestinian al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. They are the hard core of the hard core.
Although Alaa was the leader, Ahmed was the one Israel most wanted dead. I often asked Alaa why his younger brother had so many bodyguards, and Alaa would only smile mysteriously. But one day he confirmed Israel's claims: that Ahmed blew up an Israeli officer, and was the bomb-maker behind other suicide bombers.
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| Samir Bazbaz / NBC News |
| The last photo of Ahmed Sanakreh, right, with NBC’s Martin Fletcher, center, and his older brother, Alaa, left, taken in his home in December 2007. He was killed by Israeli Army forces on Jan. 18. |
Alaa, Ahmed and their friend Nasser abu Aziz were my de facto guides to the Palestinian side of the second Intifada (uprising). They were terrorists to the Israelis, freedom fighters to their neighbors, and sources to me.
I quizzed them often about the latest developments. My NBC colleagues and I met them in their safe houses, hid with them in the alleys, sat in their home with their parents, and listened as their mother cried that she did not want her boys to die.
I wrote about my relationship with this band of gunmen in my book, "Breaking News," which comes out in New York on March 4. Now I'll have to update it.
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