Crossing the Line interviews journalist Mohammed Omer

This week on Crossing The Line: On 17 April 2008, Fadel Shana’a, a Palestinian camerman with Reuters news agency, was killed when he was struck by an Israeli tank shell in the Gaza Strip. Even though he was holding a camera and was clearly marked as a member of the press, both on his body and his vehicle, Shana’a was fired at by an Israeli tank less than a mile away. Host Naji Ali speaks with Mohammed Omer, a Palestinian journalist based in the Gaza Strip, about the dangers of reporting on Israeli violence.

Next, Ali speaks with Joel Campagna, a journalist and human rights activist whose organization, Committee to Protect Journalists, defends the rights of reporters to work freely without fear of reprisal from governments and armed combatants alike.

Crossing the Line is a weekly podcast dedicated to giving voice to the voiceless in occupied Palestine. Through investigative news, arts, eyewitness accounts, and music, Crossing the Line does its best to present the lives of people on the ground.

Crossing the Line’s host, Naji Ali, is an independent journalist currently living in San Francisco. Ali’s South African roots and desire for social change are the reason for his strong solidarity with the Palestinian people. In 1990 Ali was arrested in South Africa where he was detained and tortured for nearly two years by the South African secret police. Ali also lived and worked in the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.