Anas Baba is NPR's eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. He's also one of the only Palestinian journalists working full time for an American news organization in Gaza. Israel has banned international journalists from independent access to the territory throughout this war. But Baba is from Gaza City, and he chose to stay and report when the war began. Today on The Sunday Story, what it's like to cover the war while also living through it.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who is NPR's reporter in Gaza?
I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and you're listening to The Sunday Story from Up First, where we go beyond the news to bring you one big story. If you've been listening to NPR's reporting on Gaza over the past year and a half, there's a name you've likely heard. NPR's producer in Gaza, Anas Baba. With Anas Baba in Khan Yunus, Gaza. That was NPR producer Anas Baba. Anas Baba.
Anas is one of the only Palestinian journalists in Gaza working full-time for an American news organization. He's from Gaza City, and he's been NPR's eyes and ears on the ground. He sends dispatches from hospitals, displacement camps, and bomb sites.
Dust everywhere. The powder of the guns and the explosions all over the air. Wherever you put your eye to the horizon, it's the same. Destruction everywhere.
Anas does all of this with little more than a cell phone. He works closely with a team of NPR journalists who've been covering this war from outside of Gaza. Israel has banned international journalists from independent access to Gaza since Hamas's deadly attack on October 7, 2023. On January 19th of this year, a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect.
The ceasefire permitted Palestinians to return to the north of Gaza.
And today, we are returning. Hundreds of thousands of people, literally hundreds of thousands of people.
Anas Baba was one of them.
Nothing is still the same. I'm going to keep reporting here.
Justine Yan is a producer for The Sunday Story. She's been keeping in touch with Anas since he returned to Gaza City in late January to try and understand what it's like to be a reporter covering the war while also living through it. Justine takes up the story after the break. Stay with us.
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Chapter 2: What challenges does Anas Baba face as a journalist in Gaza?
They all evacuated Gaza early in the war, and he hasn't seen them in almost a year. So when he walked up to the front door of his house, he was alone. He reached for the keys in his pocket, but there was nothing left to unlock.
The doors were exploded. I found shatters of the locus itself. So the dream of unlocking my door was taken. So I just kept the keys inside my pocket and I entered the house. Once I entered, I started to feel the beating of my heart going crazy.
All of the windows had been shattered by bombs. There were gaping holes in the walls. And on the third floor, he found an unexploded artillery shell. Ana surveyed the damage, the broken glass and piles of rubble. The kitchen was totally empty.
No cooking gas, no blades, and no mugs, no spoons, nothing. My house was super sad. There was no people here in order to spread life. I tried my best to stay strong. But having that rush of emotions was good for me. It really was good for me. Because I thought that I lost that sensation.
Anas is used to being in reporter mode.
I'm on the on, on, on, on, on, go, go, go, go, go mood. Yes. I cannot even stop for a second. If I stop, that means that I'm going to find that ghost inside of me.
Now the bombs have stopped. I think now is a good time to ask him to sit and think about what it's been like.
This is Aya Batraoui, NPR's correspondent in Dubai. She's been working closely with Anas since the start of the war.
I still think he's in a little bit of a fight-or-flight mode, like, because he hasn't really settled in yet.
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