What it is Like to Live and Report in Gaza
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You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. Today, a glimpse behind the curtain of NPR's reporting from Gaza. Our correspondent Daniel Estrin is based in Tel Aviv, covering Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. We're going to hear a conversation now between Daniel and a vital member of our reporting team who's nearby but a world away.

Here's Daniel. If you've been following NPR's reporting on Gaza, there's a name you hear all the time. Anas Baba. He's NPR's producer in Gaza and one of the only Palestinian journalists working full-time there for an American news organization.

Israel bars international journalists like me from independent access to Gaza. But Anas Baba lives there. And for the last 14 months, he's been NPR's microphone in Gaza, covering one of the most devastating wars of this century. It's one that's killed more journalists over the course of a single year than any other conflict in the last several decades, as documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Anas Baba is here with us now from Gaza to reflect on what he's seen this past year and what it's been like covering this war. First of all, how are you? I truly ran out of those answers that I'm fine, I'm doing okay, everything is going fine. To be honest, I'm not feeling that I'm still the same Anas that was before the 7th of October. But we can say that I'm still at least functioning.

Well, you're not just functioning, you are doing remarkable work every day. And I thought we could talk about some of the moments that are the most memorable for you from your year of reporting. It's my pleasure. Well, one year ago, last December, I remember you were trying to make your way to Khan Yunis, Gaza's second largest city that was at that time under a major Israeli offensive.

And you hitched a ride with a very unusual car. Yes. My car broke down and I couldn't find any fuel because there was no fuel. So there was that old Mercedes, a Mercedes 89 V12 engine that we can run it on cooking oil. On cooking oil? Yes. And cooking oil at that time, believe it or not, it was 10 times pricier than the fuel itself. It costed me for one litre $20.

So I went to the city for one aim, which is Nasser Medical Complex, because it was the hospital that's holding around 1,000 patients inside. I'm sitting at the moment inside Nasser Hospital. Hundreds of families, mostly they are women, sheltering every each corner.

like a metro station in one of the busiest countries in the world. Before the military operation of the incursion to Khan Yunus, they asked the people to evacuate from the western side to the eastern side. They couldn't have a place because already all of the people from the north Gaza and Gaza City evacuated to Khan Yunus. They couldn't find a place to shelter instead of the Nasser complex. To be honest, it's huge, but it was not enough.

Let me ask you, Anas, you are a journalist experiencing what you're reporting on. You and your family have been displaced again and again. Now, how many times in the war? I got displaced seven times. Seven times. Can you talk a little bit about just the logistics of being displaced and also working as a reporter?

The displacement logistics, I wish not that you live this experience. But here is my own advices for you. Always have all of your luggage packed and ready. The building that I'm living now, it's three floors. That's holding at the meantime, 200 and around 10 people in it from my cousins.

Having 210 persons is truly crazy. You need someone to organise the traffic on the stairs because there's 50 child that's rushing around and another 10 women that's going with the bread that's freshly baked. Every single person is doing something because you cannot stand a minute without doing anything. Why? You need to raise time for your own resources. Otherwise, you're going to be dead.

And yet every day you get up and report. Is there someone you've reported on this year whose story still sticks with you when you think back? So, Daniel, we are unique. We report on both. We report on life and death.

I still remember that day when I was in Rafah and Rafah was holding around a million displaced inside of it. And there was no food, nothing available in the markets. And I was walking between all of those crowds and suddenly something stopped me. My nose snitched something very, very rare to be smelling, which is a cake.

I followed that scent and I found that there is a baker. Mr. Ibrahim is garnishing the cake with all of the cream. It's the peanut butter cream with coconut and some sprinkles. When he wants just like to assemble the cake, he transfer it like he's dealing with a little infant with much care. He started baking cakes because there was a father that came to him and he told him that's

My son lost his legs during this war and he's still hospitalised. And today marks his own birthday and I want to make anything for him that maybe draws a smile on this little child. Seeing it after 140 days of war, someone in Gaza who just like wants to share all of the love and happiness by making some cakes is making me, myself, happy.

So Daniel, in the meantime, the food situation is totally critical here in the south. We cannot find anything in the market. There is no fresh food. The Israelis are not allowing that much of aid to enter because they accused Hamas that they are taking it. Now we are living on three main things, which is bread, rice and some lanterns. That's it. What story are you hoping to report today?

in this new year. Between me and you is only a one and a half hour of drive, but you are in Israel and I am in Gaza. We live in totally different worlds. If I want, I would love to report something on this new year. I would love to report how is every single Gazan dreaming and hoping, which is welcoming a ceasefire, ending for all of this bloodshed.

Anas, I can't wait to hear your reporting about a ceasefire. Inshallah. And I hope it comes very soon. Inshallah. That's Anas Baba in Gaza talking to NPR's Israel correspondent, Daniel Estrin. And that's the state of the world from NPR. For more coverage from all sides of this conflict, go to npr.org slash Mideast Updates. Thanks for listening.

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