New Gaza War Reports Combine Tweets, Maps, SMS
- By Noah Shachtman
- January 5, 2009 |
- 9:11 am |
- Categories: Info War, Israel, Terrorists, Guerillas, Pirates
Getting tweets from the war zone is so 2008. The latest social media advance combines tools like Twitter, text messaging, and online mapping to gather up first-hand reports, straight from Gaza.
The effort, from Al Jazeera Labs, just got started; the reporting is still spotty, and the technology is very much in the testing phase. But the idea is for residents of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank to send quick updates about the conflict from their computers or mobile phones, through SMS or Twitter. The results are then verified, and posted to a Microsoft Virtual Earth map.
"Heavy fighting continues in eastern Gaza. Loud explosions, presumed to be artillery, and machine gun fire heard," one report says. "Palestinian medics confirm Israeli soldiers have shot and killed a
20-year-old man during clashes at a Gaza protest in Qalqilya, West Bank," reads another. "Nine Egyptian lorries carrying medicine and aid have entered Gaza," notes a third.
As Zero Intelligence Agents notes, Al Jazeera is using an open-source software tool called Ushahidi (Swahili for "testimony") for the online reporting experiment. The program was created in early 2008, to document the post-election violence in Kenya. Coders in Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Ghana, Netherlands and the United States have contributed to its development.
Meanwhile, that oh-so-old school way to follow war news, Twitter, is bubbling with minute-to-minute updates from both sides of the Israel-Hamas divide.
ALSO:
- Israelis Take Over Hamas’ TV Station
- Gaza Ground War Begins
- Bad Katyusha Poetry
- Israel Calls Gazans Before Bombing
- Has Israel Learned From the Hezbollah War?
- YouTube, Twitter: Weapons in Israel’s Info War
- Israeli Jets Drop ‘Small Smart Bomb’ in Gaza Strikes
- Israel Targets ‘Terror Tunnels’ (and Viagra Highway)
- Paper: Gaza Campaign Planned Months in Advance
- Israel’s Anti-Rocket Defenses Still Taking Shape
- Hamas Fighters ‘Using Hezbollah as a Model’
- Israel Unleashes Retaliatory Air Armada
- Hamas’ YouTube Ripoff, Dead Again
The Borgen Project has some good info on the cost of addressing global poverty.
$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.
$550 billion: U.S. Defense budget.
I can’t figure out why every single article on this website has at least one grammatical error, even ones written by editors! You writers need to proofread your stuff, and then have someone else proofread it before posting.
First paragraph: should be “text” messaging, not “test” messaging
Second paragraph: should be “spotty” not “spotting”
Sure, mistakes are understandable, but when it’s every single article it gets pretty old, especially when the editor of the blog is making the mistake. This is a (supposedly) reputable technology/news publication/website, not middle school English
Today Israel killed 70 civilians in order to kill 10 Hamas fighters. Many of those ‘fighers’ are policeman whose main duties include directing traffic and trying to prevent crime in the city (real dangerous threats to Israel). I’m sure this a rate Israel is extremely proud of, seeing how “they do everything possible to prevent civilians deaths”. At that rate they will only need to kill 140,000 Palestinians in Gaza to remove Hamas’ fighters. Perhaps that will quench their bloodlust for a few months, although after events like the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, I have my doubts.
For those who say Hamas hides behind civilians, get a clue. Hamas has no Merkava tanks, F15 fighter bombers, Apache helicopters, effective artillery, unmanned drones or air defense of any kind. Would you expect it to set up huge military bases in the open that would essentially have signs saying please bomb here to kill us all as quickly as possible? Do you expect Hamas to line up its entire army that includes nothing but infantry in one big formation and walk directly towards Israel’s air, naval and armored forces? Arm Hamas, the democratically elected government (which is only important when the democratically elected government kisses up to the USA), with weapons of the same level of technology that Israel possesses and then you can expect them to conduct a ‘fair fight’ otherwise they might as well just shoot themselves in the head if they confront Israel in the open.
@Mike:
…listen I’m willing to change your diaper, but please try and stay quiet.
Thanks
Noah, thanks for the post. http://www.mobileactive.org has also been providing some great coverage of the use of mobile phones in the Gaza conflict.
I’ve been pulling together some of the social media efforts and articles into a wiki which you may find interesting: http://publicdiplomacy.pbwiki.com/Gaza (feel free to add your own additions!)
Go Mike Go MIKe go go go. You show them whos boss!! Nanny you are the one who needs the diaper and mentality change while your at it!!!
The rantings of those like Mike are quite embarassing. The Hamas brought this on themselves and to be honest, those of us on the Sunni side find you Europeans/Americans buying into the Shiite propoganda to be more pathetic than what our own governments try to feed us. No one over here feels any sympathy for the Hamas/Hezbullah/Iran axis.
@Lebanese Intel
I bet your not even lebanese So go get a LIFE, Israely!!! Stop acting as if we are separated when the Sunni prime minister of lebanon spoke out that something must be done for Palestinain.
Lebanese Intel yeah right!!!
I say this again:
Let us get one thing straight you should all be aware that the fact is Israel was created based on injustice. This is why I do not expect Israel to practice any form of tolerance and justice because it was created based on INJUSTICE. Since they have taken the land: they have never stopped assaults on the Palestinians nor have they stopped mass murders on them. One would think that Jews especially Israelis, would be understanding about the value of human life especially that the Nazis treated the Jews in an inhuman way. But unfortunately what they are doing now to the palestinians is even worse then what the Nazis did to the Jews!!!.
Why!!! Because: they are starving them to death, they are playing God and unexpectedly bomb attacking them, they are throwing them out of their homes from the day they occupied until today, Israelis kill innocent children and women as if they are useless ants, They create wars and conflict between them by acting as a hidden third party, They cut electric power and fuel whenever they please and forget about the children and people who are on life support machines in hospitals, They bomb attack schools, universities, hospitals. All this for what!! For hamas!, and before hamas was created its been the same pattern. At least Jews have a Trial Union for what the Nazis did to them. And every time children die, their excuse is we are trying to get Hamas! A country based on lies and injustics carry on that way.
No one is embarassing but you, a person who doesnt want to see the truth and facts that Mike has given.
Really? Where’s the War on Israel page? Because we just all war on people these days.
Harry to tell you the truth, when you find a war by the US on Iraq and you find Israelis attacking gaza, then you have to choice but to think the world is at war and when you live in the middle east then it will affect you, that is if you care about innocents dying.
Regardless of all past, historic issues, who started this war? Who wanted to show their own people what terror really means? I have next to none simpathy for those who are coward enough to face a real standard war, instead they use civilians to mask themselves.
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war
Even the most naive American voter cannot be expected to see the morally, legally and politically questionable death sentence given to Saddam Hussein a milestone in the Bush Administration’s illegal war in Iraq. As the milestones pile up, so do the bodies.
Those violations include:
• Collective punishment: The entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.
• Targeting civilians: The airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.
• Disproportionate military response: The airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza’s elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.
Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza’s besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.
Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give rise to any Israeli right, neither as the Occupying Power nor as a sovereign state, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in its response. I note that Israel’s escalating military assaults have not made Israeli civilians safer; to the contrary, the one Israeli killed today after the upsurge of Israeli violence is the first in over a year.
Israel has also ignored recent Hamas diplomatic initiatives to re-establish the truce or ceasefire since its expiration on 26 December.
The Israeli airstrikes today, and the catastrophic human toll that they caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel’s violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries who have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza that itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
I remind all Member States of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law–regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel’s serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.
Timing of the Gaza war relates to domestic politics and international relations. See analysis: http://www.helium.com/items/1296210-why-did-israel-attack-gaza
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