The year of tragedies and wars ends without ending them
A year in which we worked together with our partners to cover the most pressing issues in society, most notably the war and its repercussions, from Gaza and the West Bank in Palestine, through Lebanon and all the way to Iraq. Our partners in Jordan continued their diverse productions on marginalized groups in addition to gender challenges, with the production of many inspiring stories that indicate that reality is not fixed and changing it is not impossible.
A full year passed during which twenty-one partners from Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan launched their productions supported by the Qareeb program. Then seventeen other partners from Iraq joined them at the beginning of the year, and by the summer, five regional partners were launching productions supported by the program.
Forty-two partners faced a year of unprecedented challenges. The most prominent of these challenges was the war that continued and expanded on the Gaza and Lebanon fronts. The tension also included Iraq, which presented Qareeb partners with several challenges, as some of the young journalists who work on these platforms, many of which are new, have never known war in their lives. Despite all the challenges, the Qareeb team was keen to launch the “Qareeb Journalism Award” for the second year, where we celebrated this profession and its workers despite all the circumstances. We also supported the participation of a team of media professionals in the Climate Summit for the second year as well, to help shed light on the pressing issues of our Arab region on the climate and environmental levels.
Our partners within the Qareeb program produced more than two thousand media materials in various forms over the past year, which helped shed light on issues that were not talked about and contributed to highlighting the human tragedy that wars generate.
While our partners in Lebanon turned their attention to the effects of the war that Lebanon experienced and that intensified significantly since last August, our partners in Palestine are still following the continuation of the war in Gaza and the continuation of tension in the West Bank from Israeli incursions to settler incursions and others.
Fadi Al-Hasani, editor-in-chief of the “Akher Qissa” website, wrote about a year he spent in Gaza and another that came amidst the continuation of the war.
“The year 2024 has passed and the war in the Gaza Strip is still ongoing, which poses more obstacles, challenges and risks. Therefore, we look forward to a new year in which the ceasefire will pave the way for more stable and peaceful conditions, enabling us to continue our work as an independent media outlet in a conflict environment, working diligently and efficiently to adequately shed light on the stories of marginalized people who have suffered the ravages of war, displacement, insecurity and instability, and contributing to improving their lifestyle and influencing local and international policies towards preserving their rights.” Diana Muqalled, a co-founder of Daraj Media, wrote about her experience in that war as a daughter of southern Lebanon.
“It had not been more than 24 hours since the ceasefire agreement in southern Lebanon came into effect when I found myself setting off at dawn towards my town of Tebnine in southern Lebanon, which had been bombed and destroyed, specifically in the neighborhood where the family home was located, and my father’s grave and garden were located. They were the first places I went to check on. The sky was gray, the birds had not yet returned, and the traces of bomb ash and shrapnel were scattered. It was a miracle that the grave had survived despite all the destruction that was close to it. My father’s garden, the olive tree, the walnut, and the orange, were faded and desolate, but alive. Even as I walked around the house, among its broken glass and cracked and dislocated doors, I felt grateful that our home was still there, while many homes around us had become rubble.” During 2024, Qarib’s partners in Iraq covered important topics including women and youth, climate change, the challenges facing marginalized groups, and activism. The Kurdistan parliamentary elections and the Iraqi parliament’s failed attempt to lower the marriage age to nine years were prominent in our partners’ coverage. It should be noted that freedom of expression in Iraq was subject to major violations in 2024. The Iraqi authorities have arrested dozens of content creators and initiated legal proceedings against many of them under the title of “low-quality content.” These proceedings are based on an outdated penal code that has not been amended since it was enacted under former President Saddam Hussein, and aim to silence critics of the government and defenders of freedom of expression.
The Iraqi media has also faced additional challenges, including political subordination, government censorship, and the spread of fake news. Journalists suffer from a lack of qualification and training, financial restrictions, and security threats.
These crises and wars that the region is going through were not a passing scene that the platforms worked to cover, but rather those working on these platforms directly touched them. “Aya Abi Haidar, one of the “Feminist Lab Point” team, tells in this video, in a comical manner, about the period during which she received her displaced family during the war after the family’s home in the southern suburbs of Beirut was destroyed.
Megaphone, on the other hand, launched a discussion about the challenges of the post-war period in Lebanon
Read the discussion
From Palestine
From the “Nisaa F” website “Umm” This video is about the problem of tons of rubble left behind by the bombing, in which rubble is mixed with the bodies of victims and dangerous chemicals
From the vision of Palestine, the story of a freed prisoner and how she continues her life after about two years in captivity
And from our partners in Jordan, this podcast from Radio Al-Najah about the impact of wars on the environment
And from the Yalla website in Iraq, the story of Zainab, the girl from Karbala, who faces challenges and criticism because of her passion for riding motorcycles.
And from Basra, Basra Radio Times Square covered the story of Saba, the young woman from Basra who loves heritage and folklore and who opened a heritage shop to sell natural roses
And this is the story of climate displacement from the Iraqi platform website
