Reflections from a Decade Reporting on Hamas in Gaza

Ilene Prusher, a journalist and author with extensive experience covering the Middle East, now teaches journalism at Florida Atlantic University. She is the digital director of MediaLab@FAU. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. For more opinions, visit CNN.

We made our way to Erez Checkpoint, where Israeli soldiers meticulously inspected our passports and searched our belongings before allowing us to pass. After navigating a heavily barricaded area, Palestinian officers recorded our information and inquired about the individuals we planned to meet. Our Palestinian coordinator stepped in, urging the armed officials to treat us politely, and soon enough, we were in Gaza. Among the list of people we were scheduled to meet that day was at least one high-ranking Hamas official.

Ilene Prusher

Jordana Miller

For 16 years, I participated in this routine intermittently while reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for American media during the 1990s and 2000s. My last trip to Gaza was in January 2009, at the end of another Israel-Hamas war marked by unnecessary death and destruction. In 2014, I covered a much deadlier 50-day Israel-Hamas war for TIME magazine, this time from southern Israel, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. This decision was mainly influenced by the fact that I now had two toddlers at home and no longer believed that entering Gaza was worth the risk.

During almost every trip I took, and there were too many to count, I had the opportunity to meet with Hamas officials, as did most good journalists. Like many others, I was curious to hear their perspective. At that time when peace efforts were ongoing and Israel was transferring territory to the Palestinian Authority, I was eager to understand why they were not in favor of the land-for-peace deal known as the Oslo Accords.

The Oslo process, which aimed to divide the land with Israel to establish a zone of Palestinian autonomy and potentially statehood, had been cautiously accepted by Yasser Arafat, the late head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). However, Hamas, the PLO's primary Palestinian rival, was fundamentally against making peace with Israel and insisted that the only way forward was through "armed resistance" with the goal of eliminating Israel. Throughout the 1990s, when the peace process was advancing, Hamas tried to sabotage it by carrying out bombings on Israeli buses and cafes. By the early 2000s, when the peace efforts came to a standstill, they had killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in this way, resulting in increased separation between Israeli and Palestinian societies.

The Hamas leaders and spokesmen who agreed to our interviews were not typical of representatives of a terrorist organization. They were articulate in English, presented their grievances in a logical manner, and were highly educated, often in engineering or medicine. They presented themselves as part of the "political wing" of Hamas, claiming ignorance about the plans of the more secretive military wing. These spokesmen often insisted that they had no knowledge of an imminent attack.

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The majority of reporters were enthralled by the shadowy group and sought to explain its appeal to average Palestinians and the strategic challenge it posed to Arafat. Hamas evaded tough questions by claiming its left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, making it easy for many to feel like they were in touch with the Palestinian pulse. Despite the bitter brews they sipped, reporters were captivated by Hamas' explanations for their actions, including attacks on Israeli civilians. The spokesman's insistence on anonymity raised suspicions about the sincerity of their statements.

Hamas tried to appear reasonable by suggesting that its leaders would consider a long-term truce with Israel, but in reality, they would never agree to a permanent deal due to Islamic beliefs. In anticipation of a planned attack, Hamas misled Israel into thinking they wanted peace and better conditions for Gazans, leading Israel to relax border crossings, allowing thousands of additional workers from Gaza. However, this move ended up being exploited by Hamas to gather intelligence for the attack.

Crowds of people stand holding placards, anxiously awaiting updates on the release of hostages as part of a recent swap deal between Hamas and Israel in Tel Aviv, Israel on November 25, 2023.

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Hamas frequently misled reporters with inaccurate information. During the 2008-2009 Israel-Hamas conflict, Hamas claimed that fewer than 50 of the 1,400 dead in Gaza were combatants. However, over a year later, Hamas admitted that 600 to 700 of its militants were killed. In subsequent wars, Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza launched rockets that sometimes hit their own citizens, but they rarely took responsibility for these errors, instead blaming Israel. Despite these misleading claims, mainstream media often reported them without verification. For example, mainstream media outlets quickly reported Hamas' claim that an Israeli air strike devastated a hospital and killed 500 Palestinians. Later details revealed that it was likely Islamic Jihad, not Israel, that fired the missile and that the casualty count was much lower.

Once again, hospitals were at the forefront of the conflict when Israel surrounded the Al-Shifa Hospital, claiming that it had been used by Hamas. Despite evidence of weapons being found on site and tunnels being built to allow the organization to use Al-Shifa as a base, Hamas continued to deny using hospitals.

A Palestinian woman is seen sitting among the rubble in her apartment in the Khezaa district on the outskirts of the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, as a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas marks its second day on November 25th. Image credit: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images.

Reporters in Gaza often feel compelled to rely on Hamas numbers and denials due to the lack of independent verification options and limited presence of journalists in the area. However, it is important for journalists to be transparent about their reliance on Hamas-provided information and to provide context on the organization's history of unreliability.

After October 7, it became evident that members of Hamas did not show any remorse for the killing of over 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of more than 200. Eyewitnesses reported that Hamas gunmen laughed as they carried out the attacks and gleefully rampaged through Israeli homes, even recording themselves. Did Hamas undergo a change, or were they simply being seen in a different light by the media?

Founded in 1987 as a specifically Palestinian organization, there is evidence that Hamas has been influenced by global jihadist groups, particularly ISIS. However, Hamas has maintained its focus on "the Zionist entity," rather than the US, other Western targets, or other religions. The military wing of Hamas is now the center of its power and strategy, despite once having a political wing with different aspirations.

Despite media portrayal, many treated Hamas more as an opposition party with occasional violent outbursts rather than a terrorist organization. In the mid-90s, Reuters had a policy to not refer to Hamas or Islamic Jihad as terrorists, only as militants. Even after the October 7 massacre, some outlets continued this policy, despite it meeting the definition of terror as a deadly attack on civilians for ideological ends.

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Journalists in conflict zones often hold back from reporting the truth in an effort to appear neutral, or to maintain good relations with those in control. Many questions weigh heavy on my mind, and while there are no simple answers, I can say that too often, the media's main goal is to maintain access to the big story, rather than considering the credibility of the sources. While it's important for readers and viewers to hear from both Palestinians and Israelis, treating Hamas as a legitimate government is a problematic approach.

In 2014, a German journalist faced heavy criticism for immersing himself in ISIS for a documentary. Critics argued that attempting to rationalize such a deplorable group of murderers crossed a line. Shouldn't there be individuals whose actions are so reprehensible that they are not deserving of a platform or even a quote, which might provide them with a sense of legitimacy?

Should we have adopted a similar approach with Hamas or consider it going forward? Ideally, yes, but in the current dystopian reality, that might be too much to hope for. For now, if journalists continue to interview Hamas members, we must report their statements with greater scrutiny and not accept their comments at face value. We should offer context that highlights the unverifiable nature of their information and their poor track record for accuracy. And we should not refrain from questioning whether our interviews grant them too much legitimacy and provide them with more of a platform than they merit.