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Few dates in our lives can change everything.
October 7 was one of them.
Three years ago, I was living in Türkiye. On 6 October 2023, I was at a reception hosted by the Egyptian Embassy in Ankara to mark the 50th anniversary of the October 1973 war that paved the way for the liberation of Egyptian land occupied by Israel in 1967.
The next day, I met friends for breakfast, and they asked if I’d seen the news. ‘What news?!’ I said. ‘The Hamas attack,’ they said. They then showed me pictures. As a journalist, I’ve grown skeptical of anything I do not see or hear myself. My first instinct was, is this real? Once I saw it reported by credible outlets, it started to sink in.
I immediately started thinking of Egab and our journalists. How can we tell the world what’s going on there? Egab was a team of 5 people: me, an editorial director, two part-time editors, and a software developer.
But this was already one of the most heavily covered stories in the world. Every major news outlet had people in Israel.
Why local journalists
When I founded Egab in late 2020, the idea wasn’t just to connect media outlets to journalists in places where they aren’t present. The premise of Egab was that local journalists find stories and angles that even a well-staffed bureau can miss. We proved this early on. Our first commissioned story, in 2020, came from Beirut after the port blast, a city full of international correspondents.
So when the war in Gaza started, I asked the team to reach out to local journalists in Gaza and the West Bank. We wanted to know what was happening, how people felt, and how they were coping. Within three days, we got our first commission from Al-Jazeera English. AJE had a strong presence in Gaza, but our network of journalists spotted stories and angles their correspondents weren’t covering.
The first story
That first 7 October story from Gaza was a solutions journalism (sojo) story. People often ask me whether sojo is possible from conflict zones. I don’t just say yes; I point them to the hundreds of sojo stories we helped our journalists produce from conflict zones.
Egab is not a publisher. We think of ourselves as a Global Majority information platform. We help media outlets access original, exclusive, high-quality stories told by those who know their communities best: local journalists.
Because our stories run under our partner media outlets' names, we rarely hear from readers. We rely on our partners and journalists to pass on any feedback.
So that first Gaza story was extra special. It brought us our first-ever email from a reader, Liz in the US:
“Your content, journalists, and balanced reporting are shining a valuable light on the reality in Gaza. Assel Mousa's article in Al Jazeera about mothers soothing their children during the Israeli air raids touched me deeply. Without stating it outright, the article puts Palestinian mothers alongside Israeli, American, and every other mother on the planet who copes with their children's mental health.
It was a relief to read, especially as an American surrounded by TV, newspapers, and the internet awash in dehumanization and vitriol about Palestinians. Kudos to Al Jazeera for running the article, and for Egab for the bravery and humanity to dig deeper. I look forward to more Egab-sponsored work. I pray for peace.”
That story was the first of more than 300 stories from Gaza and the West Bank published through Egab.
3 years on
Three years after the 7 October attacks, our journalists are still reporting on the aftermath from Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
Their work appeared in The Guardian, El Pais, Euro News, Al-Jazeera, TRT, The New Arab, The National, Drop Site News, Zeteo, Wired, Quartz, The New Humanitarian, The Continent, More To Her Story, Mondoweiss, The Future of Good, Health Policy Watch, +972, Religion Unplugged, Shareable, Positive News, Next City, Groovevolt,Van Magazine, Ruya, The Doe & The Nation.
The credit belongs to our journalists, who keep reporting through extremely difficult conditions and trust us with their stories. Our editors make sure those stories are told well, and our media partners give them a home.
If you want to bring more Global Majority voices into your coverage, I’d like to hear from you.