Gaza: l'FM guida l'ambulanza

Ancora l'agenzia di stampa internazionale di matrice italiana, la IPS, questa volta con un drammatico reportage da Gaza, dove la stazione FM Al-Iman a volte si trova a dover coordinare le ambulanze che cercano di raggiungere i feriti nei numerosi scontri armati tra Hamas e le forze israeliane (o tra Hamas e le altre fazioni palestinesi, immagino). E' un reportage di parte, certe affermazioni sui carri armati che sparano sui soccorritori non sono ovviamente verificabili contro altre fonti, ma riflette bene una situazione in cui è molto probabile che la popolazione non abbia la possibilità di telefonare a un vero e proprio centro di smistamento - niente 118, a Gaza - e utilizza le radio in FM per lanciare appelli che vengono raccolti da ospedali ed equipaggi sparsi sul territorio. Su Radio Networking for Democracy in Palestine, ho scoperto che Radio Al-Iman ha anche un sito Web dove potete ascoltare lo stream in diretta. Proprio in questo momento sto ascoltando il notiziario che parla, mi pare, delle nostre elezioni.

MIDEAST: No Ambulance, Call the Radio
By Mohammed Omer

GAZA CITY, Apr 12 (IPS) - "I am bleeding uncontrollably, I need an ambulance." That was not a call to emergency services, it was an appeal broadcast live on radio in Gaza City.
Who knows whether there will ever be an ambulance or not. But this way the ambulance services still hear the appeal broadcast on Al-Iman FM Radio Station, one of few independent radio stations in Gaza. And if the emergency services cannot help, someone else who hears the appeal might.
The ambulance dispatcher announces he cannot get the ambulance to the man. An Israeli bulldozer is blocking the road, and an Israeli tank on a hilltop has been firing at the ambulance, he says. Nobody can say if anyone else got to help the man. But at least his SOS could have been heard.
Appeals again went on air after the Friday attacks on Bureij refugee camp, where the death toll climbed to 16 by the weekend. The deaths included six children among nine people killed Friday. Again, ambulance crews confirmed they could not reach many of the injured. But the appeals were made on radio for all to hear.
A man called from east of Jabaliya refugee camp asking for an ambulance for his wife about to deliver. The radio host asked his location, and that of Israeli tanks. "I can't look from the window to see," he said. "They will shoot me if I do."
A lady called to ask an ambulance to clear the remains of a body lying on the door. IPS confirmed later that it was the body of Abdelrazek Nofal, who was 19. He was blown to bits by an Israeli tank shell.
Someone else called from Bureij asking for ambulance, and for food and water. "My mother needs to be in hospital urgently," he called the radio station to say. Another difficult mission, with the Israeli troops patrolling the area.
The appeals are heard on radio day after day. No one can say what follows the appeals in each case. But the live broadcasts on the radio can be a lifeline – or at the least, a line of hope. Where emergency services and aid agencies are not listening in, the radio then calls them.
"It brings tears to my eyes," says radio host Khaled al-Sharqawi (foto). "I can sometimes hear shooting, and women and children screaming, asking for ambulances, and the ambulances cannot reach them."
Emergency services keep the radio on, if only to go in when it's safe to bring out bodies. On one recent mission, said Ahmed Abu Sall, who works as a volunteer medical worker, "we were shot at by an Israeli tank. Two bullets hit the wheels."
This mission succeeded, as several do. But it can be a long haul to call and wait. Often, cell phone batteries run out as people call again and again with the appeals for help.
The Palestinian Telecommunications Company has given the radio station a toll-free number. That makes calling easier, but the radio statiion has to be on guard also against mischief. Hosts do what they can to check sources and credibility before putting an appeal live on air.
Not every call is a medical crisis. "In such cases we call human rights organisations," Sharqawi told IPS. "But they usually tell us they cannot help people on the ground."
Most people working at the radio station are young volunteers. And Al-Iman isn't the only one; several other local radio stations have begun now to hear and to broadcast live appeals for help.

Dialogo in modulazione di frequenza

Il Toronto Star celebra con un bel ritratto una iniziativa radiofonica che sta facendo discutere nel Medio Oriente. La stazione in lingua inglese Ram-Fm, intende promuovere, da Ramallah, il dialogo israelo-palestinese attraverso una programmazione musicale moderna e la diffusione di notizie indipendenti ed equilibrate. Un sogno che ha anche un preciso interesse commerciale: quello del magnate sudafricano dei media Issie Kirsh, uno che di radiofonia in situazioni difficili se ne intende. Il suo gruppo, Primedia, è il proprietario della stazione sudafricana 702, che fu attiva protagonista del dialogo negli ultimi anni dell'Apartheid. Per un paradosso quasi buffo se consideriamo il teatro di cui si sta parlando, Ram-Fm trasmette da Ramallah anche perché l'autorità palestinese ha rilasciato una licenza che gli israeliani difficilmente avrebbero concesso (non tanto per ragioni politiche ma per motivi molto simili a quelli che rendono quasi impossibile creare una nuova stazione FM qui in Italia...).
Ram-Fm trasmette su 93,6 e 87,7 e può essere ascoltata in streaming Web.

Radio station's cause higher than cash – Mideast peace
December 17, 2007 Oakland Ross - Middle East Bureau

JERUSALEM–Take a South African media magnate, an intractable Middle Eastern conflict, a play list of mostly American pop songs, at least $2 million in start-up capital, plus 23 workers from diverse ethnic and national backgrounds.
Bind them together in a knot of good intentions and you get ...? Well, in Israel and the Palestinian territories, you get about 80 per cent music, 20 per cent talk, and, maybe, just maybe, a step closer to concord in what must be among the most fractious regions of the globe.
Or "The All New 93.6 RAM-FM," the only Palestinian-licensed, English-language radio station in the Holy Land, a broadcasting venture that might not make much money, not yet anyway, but it's dedicated to a higher cause than cash. That cause is peace.
Except that on-air staffers don't call it that. In the Middle East, even the word "peace" can start a fight. The word is associated by many Israelis with Palestinian sympathizers who blame the Jewish state for most of the region's troubles.
"People perceived us to be partisan because we used the word `peace,'" explains news director Andrew Bolton, 40, formerly of Johannesburg, South Africa. "We took the word `peace' out, because that's perceived to be political."
Accustomed to careful handling of sometimes explosive verbiage, news readers and DJs at RAM-FM use a less controversial coinage – "harmony" is what they say – when they talk about hopes for better relations between Israelis and Palestinians.
That prospect is something they talk about a lot, because Living in Harmony, the station's new slogan, constitutes the main reason RAM-FM went on air this past February, broadcasting from its studio in the West Bank capital of Ramallah and spreading its message of pop music, lively talk, and better understanding across the length and breadth of a region that has long seethed in a state of undeclared war.
"The unique product of this station is the news," says station manager Maysoun Gangat, 42, a Palestinian who grew up in Jerusalem and now lives in Ramallah. "Israelis for the first time have news from the Palestinian side. For the Palestinians, it's good to know what's happening on the Israeli side."
To ensure both sides get balanced coverage, the station now maintains two studios: the original operation in Ramallah and a newer set-up on the 11th floor of the Tower Building in West Jerusalem. The station claims 120,000 listeners in the Palestinian territories and 380,000 in Israel. It is also available in streaming audio on the Internet at www.ramfm.net.
A tall, stylish woman, Gangat divides her time between the two offices, while the seven-member news department, "Middle East Eye-Witness News," maintains three full-time staff in each city, plus another reporter in the Gaza Strip, and a network of freelance correspondents in neighbouring capitals.
The result is a single news source for Israelis and Palestinians in English, a more or less neutral tongue. That might not seem like an earth-shaking innovation, but this is the Holy Land, where two conflicting peoples dwell on opposite sides of a nearly impregnable information barrier. RAM-FM aims to change that.
"I've received complaints we're pro-Israeli," says Bolton, one of several South African staff. "I've received complaints from the other side that we're pro-Palestinian. That leaves me in a comfortable place."
The station's South African connection is unmistakable – checkout morning-man John Berks's plummy tones – and no accident.
RAM-FM's founder and patron is Issie Kirsh, a South African entrepreneur who was among the prime movers behind a now legendary African venture called, Radio 702, a Johannesburg AM outlet that began playing top-40 hits in 1980 and gradually evolved into a sort of on-air clearing house for news and debate during the latter years of apartheid – a single venue where blacks and whites could both speak out and be heard.
Kirsh and others hope RAM-FM can do for the Holy Land what Radio 702 did for South Africa, using words and music to ease the way to, you'll pardon the expression, peace.
"That's what 702 did, lessening that gulf of fear and mistrust," says Bolton. "Each situation is unique, but there are parallels. Israelis and Palestinians also have enormous mistrust of each other."
Along with regular newscasts, RAM-FM airs a daily public-affairs show. Gangat says the liveliest response so far to a recent Talk at Ten segment was on the future of Jerusalem; both sides want it as their capital. "It's the most complicated issue. It's what touches the heart."