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Part of Israel's game plan during it military operation in the Gaza Strip
was to seal off media access to the whole area.
The little information and footage that did come out of Gaza during the month long war
was only what journalists who were already inside managed to provide.
Sander Van Hoorn, a correspondent for Dutch public television, spent the entire
war on the outskirts of Gaza, more than two kilometers away from the action.
This is where I would be standing, you would be the cameraman,
behind me the darkness of Gaza, I stand here and tell the story,
as far as I was able to tell it.
Sander could not tell the full story because there were Israeli soldiers -
out in the roads, the hills and the surrounding fields -
ready to fight them off from even coming close to Gaza.
I guess in day 1 or 2 of the war they closed the areas directly surrounding
the Gaza Strip as a closed military zone, right here there was a road block by the police.
The Israeli media broadcasted reports about the war 24-7
but still, the Israeli public had a very unclear view about what
was happening in its own back yard. Shir Ziv, a TV critic for a daily newspaper
in Israel followed the Israeli TV closely throughout the war.
There were news broadcasts all the time, everything on TV was only about the war
But from Gaza we only saw only "sterile" footage of quiet neighborhoods
without any Palestinians - we hardly saw or heard Palestinian people.
According to Dr. Tamir Sheffer of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
Israelis did not have the basic democratic right of knowing
what's being done in their name.
It is important for people in a democratic country to know what's
going on and what are the affects of what the Israeli army is doing during
during the war, and that's something that was completely unavailable
for Israelis during the Gaza war.
The public did not see the full picture and based their
opinion (of the war) on partial information.
The place we are going now is what we call the hill of shame
It's a hill overlooking the Gaza Strip, close to the Gaza Strip but obviously not
in that closed military zone, and that was where everybody (media) was.
Sander, along with other foreign Journalists, protested against the
the blockage and even won an appeal in Israel's supreme court
but still could not enter Gaza freely until after the operation ended.
You can not tell from this hill point what is happening so you spend
the day on the phone talking to the people you know over there
trying to verify if somebody claims to know something.
Israeli journalists have not been allowed into Gaza since 2006
Dr. Sheffer explains that the Israeli public opinion during the war -
supported the media blockage.
The amazing thing is that the Israeli public really liked the blocking policy
really liked the fact that the Israeli government and the Israeli army
didn't provide them - provide the public - with information.
There is a war going on and the professional frustration of not
even being able to assess what might be happening -
That's really bad.
The fact that the Israeli public didn't know enough about what is going on there
didn't see the daily coverage of human suffering of the civilian population in Gaza
provided the government and the army with massive public support during the war.
This was really something that shook democracy
and I think Israel is got to worry about that, really.
The media blockage of Gaza was and is embraced by the Israeli society
The never ending conflict with the Palestinians has taken its toll
Israelis want their army to solve the problem
while they - look the other way.