AMIRA HASS

Amira Hass (born 1956) is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper Ha'Aretz. She is especially famous for her sympathetic reports from the Palestinian side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and her critical commentaries on Israeli behaviour towards the Palestinians.

The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, Hass was born in Jerusalem. She began her journalistic career in 1989 as a staff editor for Ha'Aretz and started to report from the occupied territories in 1991. As of 2003, she is the only full-time Jewish Israeli journalist who lives amongst the Palestinians, in Gaza from 1993 and in Ramallah from 1997.

Hass was the recipient of the Press Freedom Hero award from the International Press Institute in 2000, the Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Award in 2002, and the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize in 2003.

Due to her frequent reporting of events or voicing of opinions contrary to the official Israeli position, Hass is often the target of verbal attack.

Books

• Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege (Owl Books, 2000) ISBN 0805057404
• (with Rachel Leah Jones) An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land (MIT Press, 2003) ISBN 1584350199

External links

• Interview by Robert Fisk (2001)
• Interview by Israeli TV (2000)
• Interview by US National Public Radio (RealAudio, 2001).
• Search for recent Ha'Aretz articles by Amira Hass

• Press Freedom Hero award
• Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Award
• World Press Freedom Prize