Amira Hass

Hass was born in Jerusalem in 1956 to parents who were Holocaust survivors.[1] Her mother, Hanna Lévy-Hass, wrote Diary of Bergen-Belsen, an account of her time in the concentration camp.[1][5]

Hass later contributed an introduction and an afterword to her mother’s book.[5] The 2009 English edition includes her introduction, “Notes on My Mother,” originally written for the Spanish edition, and an afterword, “On My Parents,” first published in the Hebrew journal Mita’am in February 2007.[5] These contributions address the meaning of the Holocaust for Israelis and Palestinians.[5]

Hass began reporting on the Palestinian territories in 1993; a description of a 2019 program identified her as a Haaretz correspondent of 30 years’ standing.[1] She lived in Gaza during the 1990s, after the Oslo Accords, and subsequently lived in Ramallah.[2] In 2012 she divided her time between apartments in Ramallah and Tel Aviv, while the 2019 program description placed her in Hebron.[6][1] A 2025 account described her as living in the West Bank and continuing to cover both that territory and Gaza.[2]

Her book Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege was originally published in Israel in 1996 and in New York in 1999; a subsequent edition appeared from Holt in 2000.[7] Her other books include Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land.[1]

Her coverage has addressed Palestinian movement, residency, and social conditions.[8][9][10] In a 1998 article on the Gush Katif confrontation, she argued that Palestinians demanding free passage along the Gush Katif coastal road were asserting a right explicitly granted in the September 1995 Taba agreement.[8] A March 2003 discussion of Israeli newspaper coverage described a difference in the placement of her work: her stories had moved from prominent news pages to inside pages in Haaretz’s Hebrew edition, while appearing prominently on the front page of its English edition.[11]

On May 12, 2009, Israeli authorities detained Hass as she returned to Israel after repeatedly entering Gaza and spending four months there.[3] At the time, Israeli citizens, including journalists, were prohibited from entering Gaza; the Supreme Court had upheld the restriction on the grounds of the armed conflict with terrorist organizations.[3] Hass was not arrested and was released on condition that she not reenter Gaza.[3]

An INSS article’s notes cite Hass’s November 17, 2013, Haaretz article “Interior Ministry Could Expel Foreigners while Handling their Petitions.”[9] Her May 17, 2017, article “A New Palestinian Generation” was cited by INSS in a discussion of Gaza’s poverty and unemployment and a frustrated younger generation with growing social and political influence.[10]

Hass also used opinion columns to advocate changes in policy.[6] In December 2012, she proposed that European leaders triple taxes on Israeli settlement products, require visas for Israelis entering European countries, recall ambassadors after demolitions in the territories, and suspend meetings with Israeli government representatives while Israel violated international law, as she characterized its conduct.[6]

In a 2013 interview, Hass defended what she considered a Palestinian right to resist Israeli control, arguing that diplomatic and other efforts had failed.[12] She preferred the expression “unarmed resistance” to “nonviolent resistance,” saying the latter placed the burden of nonviolence on the occupied population rather than the occupying power.[12] Asked about Palestinian children’s education, she advocated teaching them how to deal with interrogators, understand their rights, and know which lawyer to contact after an arrest.[12]

In September 2014, Hass was evicted from a conference at Birzeit University, reportedly because of her Israeli nationality.[13] She said she had visited the university many times previously and left when asked.[14] Her account of her earlier work there included approximately two decades of attending events and interviewing Palestinians, with dozens of visits and interviews with faculty both on and off campus.[15]

The university subsequently expressed regret and said its academic boycott applied to institutions rather than individuals.[14] It also said it would work with students and faculty on policies opposing identity-based discrimination, while a senior official stated that there was no official policy banning contact with Israelis.[14] Some student activists opposed the apology and maintained that Israelis were not welcome.[14]

Hass received the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2003.[4] The prize, established in 1997, was described as UNESCO’s highest honor recognizing efforts toward press freedom and carried a value of $25,000 in the 2008 listing of its laureates.[4]

The International Women’s Media Foundation also honored Hass with a Lifetime Achievement Award.[16] Its commendation praised her “ability to defy boundaries of gender, ethnicity and religion in her pursuit of the truth in her reporting.”[16]

Her books on Gaza and Ramallah and her contributions to her mother’s Holocaust diary extended her work beyond daily newspaper publication.[1][5] Her reporting was also cited in research on Israeli administrative policy and Palestinian society.[9][10] Her public reception combines professional recognition with opposition to her political positions and reporting.[2] Even while criticizing her 2013 stone-throwing column, former peace negotiator Yossi Beilin described her as brave, willing to remain in the minority, and steadfast in her values.[17]

A 2013 column in which Hass defended what she considered a Palestinian right to resist Israeli control, including through stone-throwing, drew sharp criticism in Maariv and Israel Hayom; the Yesha settlers council considered suing her for incitement.[12][17] In a subsequent interview, asked about a three-year-old Israeli girl injured in a West Bank incident, Hass declined to discuss the individual case, saying, “That’s her pain,” and argued that the discussion should also encompass Palestinian children injured or killed by Israelis.[12]

Critical assessments of her work have also addressed its accuracy and political framing.[16][18] Allan Arkush, reviewing a book about Israeli “adversary culture,” included Hass among Haaretz writers portrayed as persistently criticizing their own country.[18] Criticism of her extensive coverage of the al-Samouni family in Gaza concerned her handling of conflicting accounts and evidence of armed activity; these criticisms do not independently establish the underlying events.[16]

In 2023, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi proposed ending government commercial dealings with Haaretz, citing its wartime reporting and editorial stance and quoting a Hass opinion piece comparing Israelis’ experience during one day with Palestinians’ experience over decades.[19] The proposal was not expected to reach a cabinet vote, and the cited pieces were opinion columns rather than statements of the newspaper’s general editorial line.[19]