The Palestine Telegraph
| Format | Online newspaper |
|---|---|
| Editor-in-chief | Sameh Habeeb |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | Gaza Strip |
| Website | http://www.paltelegraph.com/ |
The Palestine Telegraph is the first online newspaper based in the Gaza Strip. Its staff is composed of Palestinians and international volunteers, both professional journalists and "citizen journalists who do not take assignments from editors or paychecks from corporate controlled media."
Sameh Akram Habeeb, the founder of the newspaper, is a Gaza resident and photojournalist. The aim, according to Habeeb, is to disseminate, "the voices of the People of Palestine, the Middle East and other indigenous people around the world."
The newspaper began as a blog operated by 23-year-old Habeeb, who was at home in Gaza throughout the three-week war in the winter of 2008-2009. Issuing up-to-the-minute reports from his computer, he described the situation on his WordPress software based blog.
The premiere edition of the electronic newspaper format under the name The Palestine Telegraph came out on March 11, 2009. The newspaper is a non-profit venture that relies on donor contributions for its operations. Habeeb sits on the Board of Directors as the Chair and Founder and serves as the Editor-in-chief.
In February 2010, the newspaper generated controversy when it published an article which claimed that an Israel Defense Forces emergency aid hospital in Haiti (after the 2010 Haiti earthquake) was secretly harvesting organs and selling them on the black market. The article, written by American blogger Stephen Lendman, cited a video broadcast on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television, which consisted of a warning from an individual named "T West" who claimed to represent the group AfriSynergy, but cited no evidence. In response, founding chairman Sameh Akram Habeeb stated that Lendman’s article represents "him and his views. Some people believe in this and some don’t". In the aftermath, Baroness Tonge, at this time a patron of The Palestine Telegraph, had to stand down as health spokesperson in the House of Lords on February 12, 2010. In a follow-up article by The Jerusalem Post on February 14, 2010, which denounced the claim of organ harvesting as false, Baroness Tonge called the claim "a silly allegation".
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