Palestinian girl reporter becomes Internet sensation

By Xinhua in Ramallah | China Daily | Updated: 2014-08-30 08:07

Media around the world have been blamed for biased coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. Depending on what version you see, you could get a completely different point of view. Now, an 8-year-old Palestinian girl, Jana Jihad, has decided to tell the story her way.

Carrying her mother's mobile phone, she documents people's lives under the Israeli occupation. The West Bank village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah is the main source for her videos. Villagers organize weekly protests against a settlement being built on their lands a few hundred meters from where she lives.

Jana lives with her mother and grandmother, both of whom support her initiative. "One day, I found a narration on one of the videos and posted it online," the mother Nawal Al-Tamimi said, adding that her daughter has always had a passion for the news.

Youngest journalist

"I just decided to narrate the video with what I write in my memoirs every night," Jana said, referring to a password-locked journal in which she has documented her daily activities and emotions over the past two years.

Jana is now celebrated as the youngest Palestinian amateur online reporter documenting her people's ordeals. Using formal Arabic, the soon-to-be third-grader narrates her several-minutes-long reports imitating professional journalists and describing to her audience the atmosphere around her.

Most of her reports talk about the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict, covering issues ranging from the freedom to pray, Palestinian arrests, suppression of protests and Jewish settlements.

Jana's reports have led many followers to her social media websites, particularly Facebook. In her latest video, she takes viewers to a Palestinian police exhibit of Israeli arms recovered in Palestine and interviews a policeman there.

She ends the report with a piece of advice - "If you see these weapons, don't touch them but call the police" - then turns the camera on herself and signs off with her name, just as a broadcast journalist would.

In Jana's surroundings, it's hard to miss signs of the tension between the two sides. At the entrance to her village sits a high military tower next to a gate controlled by the Israeli army. Most of the windows in the village are covered with metal bars to guard against Israeli ammunition. One can easily stumble on tear gas canisters and exploded stun grenades in her garden.

"We live in politics," the young reporter said, referring to the weekly clashes between the villagers and Israeli soldiers. "My message is that we Palestinian children need to live like the rest of the world," she added.

'Killing affects her'

According to her mother, Jana's fear of the Israelis grew as soldiers rained tear gas and stun grenades on the village, launching nightly raids and arresting demonstrators. Then, a friend, 25-year-old Mustafa Tamimi, was killed after being hit by an exploding tear gas canister during a protest two years ago.

"The killing affected her immensely and hurt her a lot. Mustafa was bleeding on the street, and she witnessed how the army prevented the ambulance from aiding him," Jana's mother said. "She saw him dead on the floor while his face was covered in blood. This triggered her to let go of her fear."