Pakistani journalist says Gaza bombardment is not an equal war

“As of November 21, the Committee to Protect Journalists preliminary investigations showed at least 53 journalists and media workers were among the more than 14,000 killed since the war began on October 7— with over 13,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 deaths in Israel.” Source: Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

Considering the 14,000 civilians casually, brutally and relentlessly butchered in Gaza (70 per cent of them women and children)–a child is killed every 15 minutes in Israel’s ongoing bombardment.

This is a genocide in real time. Source: Defence For Children International–Palestine (DCIP) and to honour journalists working in conflict zones, this Sunday’s Bookshelf presents the perspective of a Pakistani journalist.

Journalist Sabin Muzaffar, with 25 years of experience in print and digital media, is the founder and Executive Editor of Anankemag.com (www.anankemag.com), a digital media and development platform “empowering women through awareness, advocacy and education”. Her online platform, Ananke, she says, “encourages women’s economic empowerment by raising awareness about the importance of equal participation in the technology revolution”.

Muzaffar says Ananke, her online platform strives to “trigger conversations on inclusion and gender in every sphere of society in digital space. “Most importantly, Muzaffar says, “Ananke offers leadership programmes with a vision to create a talent pool of female trailblazers.”

Muzaffar was among 20 journalists selected from the EMEA region for the London School of Economics, Journalism AI + Google News Initiative Program, and AI Academy for Small Newsrooms. Muzaffar, an International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) Fellow, is a regular speaker at global events and leading universities, including Cambridge and the London School of Economics. 

As a journalist, Muzaffar is all too familiar with violence, particularly against women in her native Pakistan. Living in the Southern Coastal city of Karachi, Pakistan, Muzaffar has grown up hearing of clashes between ethnic communities and religious sects. She says, “Gunshots–we have heard them too many times. But as journalists know, gunshots have a new meaning when it hits home. When you are told someone you have known for years has been shot and killed murdered in cold blood–that is when it cuts like a knife. Or when a journalist or those serving the injured or dying are gratuitously murdered as “collateral”. This is when journalists don’t just seek the truth but justice.

Muzaffar’s grandfather’s pre-partition work in India, her father’s journalism and advocacy during a military dictatorship in Pakistan in the 1980s, and the famed and radical Pakistani poet/ journalist/military officer/trade unionist Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s influence have all pushed Muzaffar towards both the beauty of the written word and hard journalism that tells the world the truth about injustice and violence directed at innocent civilians.

Journalist Sabin Muzaffar on Gaza’s daily bombarded population exclusively for the Sunday Guardian: “Muffled screams, ashen faces of children not opening their once sparkle-filled eyes; ashen faces of mothers who have lost their babies; fathers desperately digging to find life underneath the rubble only to find lifeless bodies–dying, leaving this hell in the hopes of finding heaven? A land they might hopefully … finally call home, where they might at last be free? “I am not just a number!” This tweet of a young Palestinian woman was chilling. Without communication, there is no telling if she has become what she feared the most–becoming but a number. “Since the beginning of the siege in Gaza, the most vulnerable citizens women and children have borne the brunt of asphyxiating hate and devastating violence.

“Forty per cent of the wounded in Gaza are children, and the world now bears witness to Orphans who are known by a wretched acronym coined in Gaza as WCNSF (Wounded Child No Surviving Family) and are in dire need of care. As an example, 37 premature infants were out of their incubators: Three infants were already dead. The destruction is mind-numbing.

“A UN Women report revealed that more than 493,000 women and girls have been displaced from their homes in Gaza, and 900 women are heads of their families due to the deaths of male family members.

“Since October 7, Israeli attacks have killed at least 5,500 children. An additional 1,800 children are missing under the rubble, most presumed dead. A further 9,000 children have been injured, many with life-changing consequences. Many of these children have lived through the trauma of multiple wars. “Source: Al Jazeera “This is not a war. Wars are not fought with those fighting for survival in Concentration camps.

It is not even an unequal battle if one’s assumed foes are civilians. Sadly, oppression does create pathways to resistance and inescapable radicalisation. There can never be any justification for violence, regardless of which side one is on. My mission as a journalist is to be a voice for women suffering in silence or amidst violence everywhere. The work is unending.”

End of excerpt. 

Sabin Muzaffar is the UN Women’s Empower Women Global Champion for Women’s Economic Empowerment and a Cherie Blair Foundation Mentor, mentoring and training 100+ girls globally, focusing on digital media, online advocacy and communication. Muzaffars Ananke’s digital internship program ME has mentored and trained over 50 girls from Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, UAE, the US, Morocco, and Australia. For its 2019 cohort, Muzaffar received more than 100 applications in just 20 days worldwide. The final cohort comprised 18 girls from China, Belarus, Tanzania, Kenya, Pakistan, China, Egypt, Belarus, Nigeria, Russia, Denmark, and Bangladesh. Ananke’s digital internship programme aims at leveraging tech to empower women by offering access, meaningful engagement and safe online spaces.