Fledgling radio station aims to be 'voice of the people' in Gaza

DEIR EL-BALAH, Occupied Palestine: From a small studio in the central city of Deir el-Balah, Sylvia Hassan’s voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory’s first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.

Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station “Here Gaza”, delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck.

“This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep,” Hassan told AFP.

“It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience.”

Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.

“The radio station’s goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war,” said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.

“There are many issues that people need to voice.”

Most of Gaza’s population of more than two million people were displaced at least once during the gruelling war.

Many still live in tents with little or no sanitation.

The war also decimated Gaza’s telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, compounding the challenges in reviving the territory’s local media landscape.

“The electricity problem is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip,” explained Khalifa.

“We have solar power, but sometimes it doesn’t work well, so we have to rely on an external generator,” she added.

The station’s launch is funded by the European Union and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organisation that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media centre at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.

The station is planning to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.

Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now able to broadcast uninterrupted sound.

The Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, sparked the war.

Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strictly control the entry of all goods and people to the territory.

“Under the siege, it is natural that modern equipment necessary for radio broadcasting cannot enter, so we have made the most of what is available,” she said.