Barbarism on the move

Award Winning Journalist Tortured By the Barbaric Israeli Security Agents

On June 26, 2008 Palestinian journalist and Washington Report on Middle East Affairs correspondent, Mohammed Omer was stopped by Israeli security agents while travelling from London to his home in Gaza. Omer was in London to receive the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism as a result of his courage in reporting the news, his commitment to an oppressed people, and his conviction, against violent retaliation.

Initially, Omer's chances of reaching London to accept the award had been unpromising. Israel refused to grant him an exit permit out of Gaza, and ultimately, diplomatic intervention was necessary to obtain the permit. On his way back home, Omer ran into the same problem. Though given permission to return (again, only through extensive and painstaking diplomatic intervention), Omer was stopped in Amman and refused entry into Rafah.

Finally, on June 26, he was told that arrangements had been made to get him across the border. Dutch diplomats would receive him at the Allenby crossing, and from there would escort him home to the Gaza Strip. Despite his diplomatic escort, Omer was detained by Israeli Shin Bet security agents.

The agents at first asked Omer for the stipend that came with his award. When he told them he did not have it with him, they proceeded to strip him down and beat him unconscious. Later, Omer would recall "one of them gouging, scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender flesh beneath my eyes. He scooped my head and dug his fingers in near the auditory nerves between my head and eardrum. The pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time. Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing into the hard floor. I lay there for over an hour. The room became a menagerie of pain, sound and terror. "Vomiting and going in and out of consciousness, he was dragged to a Palestinian ambulance, where the GSS agents tried to have him sign a contract indemnifying them from their actions.

The Palestinian medic in the ambulance refused, and, after threatening to contact the Dutch embassy escort waiting for Omer, the Israeli agents finally let them through. Omer woke up in a hospital in Jericho, from which he was released and escorted home to Gaza. The ordeal he had gone through, however, was not so easily dissipated. The next day, suffering from cracked ribs and other injuries, he was admitted to a hospital in Gaza, where he remains as of this writing.