top
Palestine
Palestine
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

IMEMC Office Raided by Israeli military, Website Under Cyber-Attack

by IMEMC
In the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, October 11th, 2015, the Israeli military invaded the office of the International Middle East Media Center in Beit Sahour, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The office is shared by the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement, the organization which founded the IMEMC in 2004.
800_idf-raid-imemc_20151011.jpg
Because the invasion took place around 4 AM, Sunday morning, no staff were in the building at the time. The soldiers broke the locks, bashed in the doors, ransacked the offices and broke equipment. The army also invaded several neighboring buildings.

Surveillance footage shows the soldiers breaking into the office.

The military invasion of our office comes as the IMEMC website continues to be subjected to cyber-attacks that began on 14 Sept. 2015 and have continued unabated since then. Our website managed to get back online after 2 days of downtime, with the help of Irish and Canadian cyber-activists with the organization Equalit.ie.

The IMEMC is the leading English-language news website focused exclusively on the Israel-Palestine issue, averaging between 900,000 and 1.5 million unique website visitors per month. Refusing to accept grant money that would include editorial control over our content, has allowed the IMEMC to remain independent. But it also has resulted in our staff losing their salaries. Currently, everyone who works for the organization has been without salary for years, but we continue this work because of a passion for objective, fact-based reporting about Israel-Palestine for an English-language audience.

The IMEMC strongly condemns the invasion of our office by the Israeli military, and all of the attacks by the Israeli military against the media that have taken place during the past month of escalation.

The International Middle East Media Center has put out an urgent call for support in order to cover the cost of repairing the damage to the office, and to transition from the existing commercial web hosting provider to a service that has experience fighting off cyber-attacks.


Please Become a Monthly Donor to keep the IMEMC Alive

------------------------------------------------------------------------

nsnbc international contacted and interviewed IMEMC Editor-in-Chief Saed Bannoura to hear his opinion about the raid at dawn and the current escalation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

nsnbc: IMEMC is conveying much news coverage about Palestine to a worldwide English-reading readership. Much of this coverage would otherwise only be available in Arab language. Would you perceive the raid as part of an Israeli strategy to intimidate independent journalists within the context of the current uprising against the occupation and the escalating violence?

Saed Bannoura: Yes. As you know, IMEMC has also been subject to frequent cyber-attacks and attempts to put our website offline. Just last week we were subject to another cyber attack. Therefore, I would extrapolate that the raid is part of an attempt to silence us. Last week’s attack was the strongest cyber-attack we had experienced so far. It came after several smaller attacks.

nsnbc: I recall that your site was subject to a cyber (DoS / DDoS) attacks during the 2014 war on Gaza, resulting in your website being offline for a few days. On a positive note, there are indicators such as the fact that the readership went up with several hundred percent while mainstream media were bleeding viewers, listeners and readers to media like IMEMC, nsnbc international and others. Cyber attacks against IMEMC, nsnbc and others usually happen within such contexts. What would you perceive as one of the main problems with regard to cyber-security?

Saed Bannoura: It is in part an economic problem. Depending on donations from readers we lack the money for a much-needed re-design of our website, and moreover, the money to find a reliable web-host.

nsnbc: Concurrently with last week’s cyber-attack IMEMC reported about the infiltration of Palestinian protesters by Israeli agent provocateurs and death squads. This included video coverage of a willful fatal shooting of a Palestinian by Israeli officers (see video below). If you would allow me a personal question please. – You have yourself experienced extreme violence, have been shot several times by a death squad and have become paralyzed as a result of this attack. What is your personal response to the recent aggravation of violence and how do you perceive this development from the perspective as Editor-in-Chief of the International Middle East Media Center?

Saed Bannoura: Well, the use of death squads is nothing new. Their mission is to kill more than it is to arrest. I have had my own experience some years ago but the death squads never actually stopped. What happens is that they recently have escalated their operations.

I personally, and from experience believe Israel is very devastated and cannot stop the Palestinian uprising. It will resort to whatever means it has available. What does not kill us makes us stronger, and what does actually kill us creates generations of new revolutionaries.Israel is desperate and I would not be surprised if they resumed extra-judicial assassinations.

nsnbc: Thank you Sir, for the interview. We know the problem about financing independent media all too well and hope that you will receive support in that regard. We also hope that the latest Sunday-morning raid will not affect your reporting and daily news coverage.
Copy the code below to embed this movie into a web page:
§Israeli police kill Fadi Alloun in cold blood
by Electronic Intifada
Copy the code below to embed this movie into a web page:
This video is posted here for the purposes of news reporting of current events. It shows the killing of a Palestinian youth, Fadi Alloun, in occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday, October 4, 2015. Israeli police said the youth was killed as he attempted to carry out a stabbing. The video shows that Alloun was killed in cold blood and presented no danger to anyone.
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network