Personal Info
- Country of residence: United Kingdom
Information
Sameh Akram Habeeb is a Palestinian journalist from the Gaza Strip. While completing his bachelor's degree in English language and literature in 2005, he began his journalism career and joined Ramattan News Agency as a reporter and news producer. He has also worked with humanitarian organizations in the Gaza Strip.
In 2007, Habeeb started to intensify his media work as the siege became tougher in Gaza. He launched a blog, Gaza Today, the Untold Story, late in 2007. Between 2007 and 2008 he published tens of articles, photo stories, and features, and blogged on a daily basis. The same year, he started to take photos in Gaza that only focused on humanitarian conditions. His photos were shown on Sky News and published internationally. In April 2008, Habeeb conducted a speaking tour across Italy, lecturing at 25 meetings in universities, colleges and city councils, to speak about the conditions in Gaza.
During the 2008–09 Gaza War he was one of few sources of news in Gaza, as Israel had banned international reporting from inside the strip. He reported for a number of media outlets, including The Real News and INN World Report and was a contributing reporter for BBC, Sky News, Channel 4, ABC, CBC, CNN, and tens of other media outlets on an hourly basis. Working under terrible conditions during the war, he worked as a field reporter with Netwerk TV of the Netherlands, as well as Vandakh, where he did various reports about the war.
During the 23 days of the War on Gaza, Habeeb sent daily dispatches via his blog about the war for all media outlets. His reporting put him in focus, which, he reports, led to numerous threats on his life. PBS studied Habeeb’s work, and drew a comparison between the Israeli and Palestinian media.
In March 2009, Habeeb left Gaza for the UK, where he founded the first Palestinian newspaper to operate from Gaza, the Palestine Telegraph Newspaper. The Palestine Telegraph exposed many important issues regarding Israeli occupation, including the use of depleted uranium in Gaza. The newspaper covers Palestinian news on a daily basis.
Habeeb is currently studying for his Masters degree in the UK, and he is a regular guest as a political analyst on Middle East issues on Press TV, BBC and others. In 2009 and 2010, he carried out more than 100 workshops, meetings and conferences across the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, France and Australia, where he conducted lectures on the media in Palestine and the recent political conditions in Gaza and the West Bank. He has also worked with many European and British Members of Parliament in regard to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and has spoken repeatedly at the British Parliament.
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