Nothing prepares you for the moment history stops being something you read about and becomes something you stand inside
I was standing on the Gaza border doing a live television report when something changed on my cameraman’s face. His eyes suddenly widened. He turned around and ran. I carried on talking.
Only afterwards, when I watched the footage back, did I realise what had happened. A rocket had landed incredibly close behind me. The blast left a crater in the ground and scattered debris around us. The head of the television channel phoned me afterwards. “Paula,” she said, “you were incredibly brave. You didn’t even flinch.” The truth was much less heroic. I simply didn’t know what was happening behind me.
A month later I crossed into Lebanon to cover the Second Lebanon War. Before I left, my sister Hayley, who lives in England, phoned me with what she thought was a perfectly sensible idea. “Can’t you phone the Israeli army and tell them which car you’ll be travelling in?” she asked. To her, it made complete sense. If they knew where I was, surely they wouldn’t bomb me. I smiled, knowing it wasn’t possible. That was also the moment I realised that
every war has two front lines. One is where the journalist stands. The other is where the people who love you wait, hoping the phone will ring.