I still remember the moment when the Gaza Baptist Hospital massacre happened during the early days of the Gaza genocide. As the reports and footage started to circulate on social media, we realized that this was not like any other moment we’ve ever experienced in our normally hectic job. It was the first time a massacre of this magnitude occurred during a genocide, livestreamed for the first time in history too. And we have a responsibility to document it.
When reporting news on social media, you're always under pressure to post the news accurately as it's happening. But when you’re covering the genocide of your own people in real time - something you’ve never dealt with before or even imagined you’d ever deal with, no experience can ever prepare you for a moment like that.
Actually, instead of ‘imagined’, perhaps I should say ‘hoped’ because when it comes to the Zionists, no crime is unimaginable. As a Palestinian, witnessing the genocide of my people live with complete inaction from the international community has been an extremely difficult experience. But being in charge of Kuwait Times social media increases the responsibility of reporting the actual facts as they are happening. Not only is this important for our integrity as journalists and human beings, but providing live updates on the ongoing genocide in English becomes extremely important to challenge the one-sided, pro-Zionist narrative that the Western media has always promoted.
And the longer the genocide lasted, the more people in the West and around the world started becoming more educated about the Palestinian cause. Facing a new reality where the public opinion was starting to shift more in favor of Palestine has heightened our sense of responsibility to show the facts even more. It also gives us extra motivation that in the midst of all the despair, we can at least be a voice that helps achieve that change towards realizing the ultimate goal of liberating Palestine.
But telling the truth in itself wasn’t always easy. One of the main challenges we’ve faced reporting the Gaza genocide was navigating through censorship and strict rules placed by social media giants. The guidelines placed by Meta on Instagram in specific presented an added challenge as we try to avoid shadowbans, having our posts removed or even getting our account suspended while reporting the news, similar to what happened to many journalists inside and outside of Gaza.
If there is one silver lining from this experience, it would be seeing the positive feedback from you, the readers, which has been a great motivator for us throughout the past year. It also serves as a constant reminder of our great responsibility as journalists during one of the darkest points in history. Furthermore, it is an affirmation that standing on the right of history is oftentimes the more difficult choice, but it’s one that we at Kuwait Times always strive to take.
We hope that by the time we celebrate our next anniversary, Palestine will be free.