Five Great Reads: reporting from Israel and Palestine, Alan Alda, and the boy who came back
Happy Saturday! Ted Talks are apparently getting shorter because of our attention spans, so I'd better make this brief. I'm here to take you through the good stuff from the week – and ever so quickly spare a moment for Lorde, who crashed a Lorde-themed-party here in Sydney.
There are many interesting things the US actor, director and writer Alan Alda shares in his G2 interview with Simon Hattenstone – and being married for 68 years (in a divorce-ridden industry) is just one of them.
The Four Seasons: the 80-year-old is back in the spotlight thanks to a Tina Fey revamp of his 1981 movie, which he marvels at.
Record for a scripted TV series: Alda is best known for his role as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H. Its final episode was watched by 106 million people in the US, 'still a record for a scripted TV series', Hattenstone writes.
How long will it take to read: six minutes.
After four years reporting from Israel and Palestine, Bethan McKernan is returning to the UK. The Guardian correspondent reveals the grief, horror and hope that defined her time there, including in the immediate aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks – when 'nothing was clear at that point except that many, many more people were going to die'.
The article that never was written: Three days before 7 October, McKernan was in Gaza to interview people about 'the revival of beekeeping', when she spotted what looked like a Hamas military drill in the distance.
The story that ended up being covered: 'No one with an internet connection can say they don't know the truth of what has happened in Israel and Palestine over the past 18 months,' McKernan writes.
How long will it take to read: six minutes.
I remember the first time I encountered Alexa. I was in high school, and my friend was cooking us breakfast. We asked the Amazon device for a banana pancakes recipe. Instead, rather cheekily, Alexa played Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson.
But what would happen if you asked the same device (which has significantly improved since my high school days): 'what do you know about us?' It's a question Jeremy Ettinghausen put to his Alexa, which has been his family's on-call vet, DJ, teacher, parent and therapist for years.
'Our requests ranged from prosaic to troubling and downright bizarre – there was very little we didn't ask Alexa' – Jeremy Ettinghausen
How long will it take to read: six minutes.
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Last month the Guardian reported on an online suicide forum being investigated under new UK digital safety laws. Then followed a story on Adele Zeynep Walton's family experience: how after the death of their daughter and sister Aimee, they came to learn she had been lured into a dangerous online community, and fell victim to it.
The Human Cost of Our Digital World: 'Until we lost Aimee, I didn't know what 'online harm' meant,' Walton says, who has since written a book partially on what led to her sister's death.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.
How long will it take to read: four and a half minutes.
Archie Bland's longer read on the time leading up to, during and after the near death, and changed life, of his son Max, is what I leave you with today. There are some stories that stay with you for ever. This is one of them.
How long will it take to read: 15 minutes. Yes, it's worth it.
Further listening: or you can listen to it, if you're on the move.
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At least 30 people killed in Israeli attack on aid distribution site in Gaza - Hamas-linked media
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Daily Mail
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EXCLUSIVE 'I had a plan to do it': Chilling confession of freed British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari who revealed that she had planned her own suicide during 471 'terrible' days in Gaza captivity
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Another image shows her sat captive in an ankle-length black and white dress, her bloodied left hand bandaged up during her first days held hostage in a Gaza apartment. Emily was cowering in a bomb shelter with her best friend Gali Berman, 27, at home in Kfar Aza by the Gaza border when Hamas stormed the kibbutz and slaughtered her neighbours. The terrorists killed Emily's dog, shot her in the hand and leg, and dragged them both into Gaza along with Ziv, Gali's twin brother. A Palestinian doctor calling himself 'Dr Hamas' then carelessly stitched the nerves in Emily's hand together leaving her in endless pain for over 15 months in captivity. The British-Israeli reveals her ordeal for the first time to Israeli journalist Yigal Mosko for Channel 12 documentary 'Through Emily's Eyes' which aired last night. She was hugging her pillow in the shelter with Gali when she heard the terrorists breaking her window before they broke in and shot her left hand. 'The bullet entered and split my fingers,' she said. 'I shouted to him, 'Gali, they destroyed my hand!' The pain was so extreme she passed out, and came to moments later to the terrorists shouting at her beloved pet Cockapoo Chucha. 'I hear them saying, 'Dog! Dog!' in Arabic. Chucha is sitting, looking at them, and they shoot her. Chucha's bullet is the one that entered my leg.' Emily was then lifted and carried into her own car, alongside Gali, and they were blindfolded and kidnapped into Gaza. But the defiant 28-year-old ignored the terrorists and removed her blindfold – to see that Gali's twin brother Ziv is also next to them. 'I say to Zivi, 'Zivi, Gali is with us,' and I say to Gali, 'Gali, Zivi is with us.' Like that a few times, so they would know.' Emily is then forced to put on 'prayer clothes' and taken to Al Shifa hospital. 'I enter a room with a corpse,' she said. 'I see blood is everywhere. I say, damn, what are they going to do to me here? 'Then the doctor arrives, he says to me: 'Hello, I'm Dr Hamas.' The doctor jabbed a needle in her arm and she fell unconscious, later waking to the man telling her she has lost two fingers – to which all she can muster in response is 'ok'. Emily turned to find another hostage, Romi Gonen, 24, who had been shot in her right arm fleeing the Nova festival, beside her. They managed a brief introduction before being separated – but they would meet 40 days later and spend the rest of captivity together. After the surgery, Emily was initially held with Ziv in a family's home in Gaza and was nearly killed when shelling destroyed the house. They were then moved to a sixth floor apartment, locked in a room with a closed window – but Emily opened it when she saw Israeli drones passed and showed her tattooed arm, hoping they would be able to identify her. Then, in another truly remarkable act, Emily managed to convince her guard to let her see the sea after about 30 days in captivity. It shows the strength of personality the British-Israeli has that the terrorists agreed to put her into a hijab she could sneak onto the roof - in the middle of an IDF raid. 'I look, I see the smokestacks of Ashkelon,' Emily said, referring to towns near where she lived. 'I see Sderot, I see Be'eri, I see Kfar Aza, I see everything. 'I see all the explosions, all the smoke…. Gaza burning. Now, above us, really above us, literally above us, like above our heads, are five drones and he tells me: 'Put your hand down, don't point.' 'He gets stressed that I'm pointing. He tells me: 'Put it down, it's forbidden to point.' 'I came down from the roof, and I'm thinking, what just happened to me is unbelievable. I stood with a hijab on a roof in Gaza. There's no way any hostage in the world did that.' Emily also detailed how each house she was held in was surrounded by cameras, adding that - after the successful rescue of Noa Argamani in June last year - 'came the TNT stage'. The guards told her that if the IDF came 'we will detonate'. They simply had to add an AA battery into the circuit to blow up the house with dynamite. She was held with a female hostage at one point who disobeyed the Hamas commander – a former bodyguard for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. 'It reached a point where he pushes her,' Emily said. 'My whole head spun. I started speaking Hebrew, saying: 'What are you doing?' 'I pushed him back. He grabs my hand, I push his hand away. I raised my voice, telling him: 'Now I'm going to shout that there are hostages here! If you don't bring your commander here… Get us out of this house!' 'I really started to completely lose it.' Asked if she was scared she would get killed, she said: 'No weakness in front of them. I'll push, I'll get a bullet, fine – so I'll die. So I won't be in captivity, thank you very much.' After 40 days she was separated from Ziv and told: 'You will go to the girls, and we are going underground.' 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