Amira Hass

Amira Hass (Hebrew: עמירה הס; born 28 June 1956) is an Israeli journalist, columnist, activist, and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper Haaretz covering Palestinian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, where she has lived for almost thirty years.

Hass was born in Jerusalem, the only child of Holocaust survivor parents. Her mother, Hana, a Bosnian-born Sephardic Jew from Sarajevo, joined the Yugoslav Partisans, and survived nine months in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her father, Avraham, was a Romanian-born Ashkenazi Jew. In her own words, her parents "were never Zionists, but they found themselves in Israel as refugees after the Holocaust". Both parents were involved in the Communist movement in Israel. Her father was active in the Maki party and was eventually elected to its central committee. Hass was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she studied the history of Nazism and the European Left's relation to the Holocaust.^{[citation needed]}

Frustrated by the events of the First Intifada and by what she considered their inadequate coverage in the Israeli media, she started to report from the Palestinian territories in 1991. As of 2003, she was the only Jewish Israeli journalist who has lived full-time among the Palestinians. She lived in Gaza from 1993 to 1997 and in Ramallah since.

In June 2001, Judge Rachel Shalev-Gartel of the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court ruled that Hass had defamed the Jewish settler community of Beit Hadassah in Hebron and ordered her to pay 250,000 shekels (about $60,000) in damages. Hass had published accounts by Palestinians that claimed Israeli settlers defiled the body of a Palestinian militant killed by Israeli police; the settlers said that the event did not take place and that Hass had falsely reported the story with malicious intent. The judge found in favour of the settlers, saying that television accounts contradicted Hass's account and ruling that Hass's report damaged that community's reputation. Haaretz indicated that it did not have time to arrange a defense in the case and indicated that it would appeal the decision. Hass said that she had brought forward sourced information from the Palestinian community and said that it was the responsibility of newspaper editors to cross-reference it with other information from the IDF and the settler community.

On 1 December 2008, Hass, who had traveled to Gaza aboard a protest vessel, had to flee the strip due to threats to her life after she criticized Hamas. She was arrested by Israeli police on her return to Israel for being in Gaza without a permit.

After residing in the Gaza Strip for several months, Hass was again arrested by Israeli police upon her return to Israel on 12 May 2009 "for violating a law which forbids residence in an enemy state".

Hass identifies as a leftist. In 2011 she joined the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza. In a speech in Vancouver, when asked whether there is any hope for the region, Hass answered, "Only if we continue to build a bi-national movement against Israeli apartheid."

In 2006 she compared Israeli policies toward the Palestinian population to those of South Africa during apartheid, saying, "The Palestinians, as a people, are divided into subgroups, something which is reminiscent also of South Africa under apartheid rule."