1. Amira Hass is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper Haaretz covering Palestinian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, where she has lived for almost thirty years.
15 Facts About Amira Hass
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The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, Hass is the only child of a Bosnian-born Sephardic Jewish mother, who survived nine months in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and a Romanian-born Ashkenazi Jewish father.
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Amira Hass was born in Jerusalem and educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she studied the history of Nazism and the European Left's relation to the Holocaust.
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In June 2001, Judge Rachel Shalev-Gartel of the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court ruled that Amira Hass had defamed the Jewish settler community of Beit Hadassah in Hebron and ordered her to pay 250,000 shekels in damages.
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Amira Hass had published accounts by Palestinians that claimed Israeli settlers defiled the body of a Palestinian militant killed by Israeli police; the settlers said that the event did not take place and that Amira Hass had falsely reported the story with malicious intent.
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Amira Hass said that she had brought forward sourced information from the Palestinian community and said that it was the responsibility of newspaper editors to cross-reference it with other information from the IDF and the settler community.
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Amira Hass was arrested by Israeli police on her return to Israel for being in Gaza without a permit.
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Amira Hass was criticized by politician Yossi Beilin and Adva Biton, whose three-year-old daughter was critically injured during a Palestinian rock attack.
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In 2018, Amira Hass suggested that the EU introduce visas for Israeli citizens, asking every applicant whether they had collaborated in war crimes or lived in occupied territory.
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Amira Hass was the recipient of the World Press Freedom Hero award from the International Press Institute in 2000.
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On 27 June 2001, Amira Hass received the Golden Dove of Peace Prize awarded by the Rome-based organization Archivo Disarmo.
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In September 2009, Amira Hass received the Hrant Dink International Award, with Alper Gormus.
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On 20 October 2009, Amira Hass received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women's Media Foundation.
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In December 2009 Amira Hass was awarded the Reporters Without Borders Prize for Press Freedom "for her independent and outspoken reporting from the Gaza Strip for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz during Operation Cast Lead, the offensive which Israel waged against the territory from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009".
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Amira Hass won the 2024 Columbia Journalism Award and was the commencement speaker for the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism on May 15,2024, in New York City.