'It's real. It happened.'
When war broke out between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas more than a week ago, Kim Hjelmgaard immediately packed his field reporting kit: security jacket, helmet, first aid kit, painkillers and chargers.
The Paste BN world affairs correspondent boarded a flight from London to Amman, Jordan, and then drove into the West Bank just over 24 hours after the brutal Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Israelis and triggered the unfolding war.
👋 Nicole Fallert here, and welcome to Your Week, our newsletter exclusively for Paste BN subscribers (that's you!). This week, I chatted with Hjelmgaard about his reporting on the ground from Israel and the West Bank.
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Some Palestinians are finding it hard to denounce attacks on Israel
As the territory plunged into a new order of war, Hjelmgaard traveled through Israel and the West Bank to see evidence of the violence across the region, interview survivors and capture the reality of the rapidly escalating conflict.
In Israel, he saw evidence of massacres Hamas committed against Jews: "It's real. It's happened."
In recording such complex history, he focus on one strategy: Don't enter interviews with loads of questions. Rather, Hjelmgaard allowed people to tell him what was on their mind.
"It's really hard to sit down with a family who's just had the news someone's died or they have a loved one who is missing," he said. "I don't want to retraumatize people while trying to get information."
Hear Hjelmgaard speak from Israel and the West Bank on Paste BN's 5 Things podcast:
- On Americans captured: ''I think the succinct way of describing that is harrowing and grisly.''
- Speaking about Palestinian reactions: "Bear in mind that these are people who don't condone violence against civilians, but they look at this issue through just a completely different lens."
His conversations in the West Bank showed how the conflict isn't black and white: The building humanitarian crisis in Gaza, along with Palestine's long, violent and bitter shared history with Israel, complicates some Palestinians' denouncement of Hamas' attacks, even though they say they don't approve of violence against civilians.
"In the West Bank there's of strong feeling about they're not bloodthirsty but they also feel quite strongly their civilians have been killed for many years and the Western world doesn't give equal weight to those deaths," he said. "I see my job as threading the needle and trying to present to our audience what I'm seeing and observing with the knowledge there's many different truths out there."
If you'd like to receive weekday updates about the Israel-Hamas war, you can sign for our weekday newsletter up here. If you're struggling to navigate sensitive conversations about the war with family and friends, we've got some expert advice.
More from Paste BN about the Israel-Hamas war:
- On both sides of the Israel-Gaza border, people are struggling to bury their dead.
- He's a key link between Hamas and Iran. Now Israel is hunting the world to find him.
- Violence and bigotry toward Palestinian Americans is spiking across the U.S.
- The wars have sparked many misleading claims online. Here's what's true and false.
- Sometimes your social media posts about the war hurt more than help.
Thank you
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Best wishes,
Nicole Fallert