Gazan Filmmaker With Ties to Palestinian Terror Group Nominated For News and Documentary Emmy

A Gazan woman with long ties to a U.S.-designated terror organization was nominated in June for the 2024 News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

Bisan Owda, who was once a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was nominated with her outlet, AJ+ in the Outstanding Hard News Feature Story: Short Form category for her Al Jazeera show “It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive.” The video series documents Owda’s experience since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, during which the terrorist group killed over a thousand people and took hundreds hostage.

But Owda’s 4.7 million Instagram followers may not be aware of her ties to the PFLP. Owda’s connection with the group was first reported by Israeli activist Eitan Fischberger, who found evidence that Owda was a member of the Marxist terror organization, which has a history of airplane hijackings and suicide bombings. 

The PFLP, which has been a U.S.-designated terror organization since 1997, identified Owda as a member of its youth wing in a 2018 post on its website. In a 2015 on-camera interview with a Palestinian outlet, Owda, wearing military garb and a PFLP scarf, said she would not back down from “revolution.”

Here’s Bisan being interviewed at the rally celebrating the 48th anniversary of the PFLP’s founding pic.twitter.com/GrbrGu2BAM

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) August 7, 2024

“The most important front is that the people of Gaza, the people in the West Bank, and in Jerusalem, and all the protesters are one hand and one people who will not back down for a moment from their land, from their right to their land,” she said in Arabic. “That is to say, they will not back down at all from their cause and their revolution.”

The interview took place at PFLP’s 48th-anniversary celebration in 2015, for which “Comrade” Owda served as a reception committee member and welcomed the crowds, according to the Palestinian outlet Al Watan Voice. Photos show Owda on stage addressing the crowd, which included children and masked men holding knives and Hezbollah flags.

Owda also attended the following year’s PFLP anniversary celebration, where she was named as a host and opened the event with a moment of silence “in honor of the souls of our revolution’s martyrs,” according to the PFLP’s website.

Owda was nominated by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), the organization responsible for the News and Documentary Emmys. The New York City-based organization is separate from the Primetime Emmy Awards bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Bisan Owda at the 2015 PFLP anniversary celebration, as reported by Al Watan Voice. (Photo credit: Al Watan Voice)

A spokeswoman for NATAS told The Daily Wire that its awards are given by independent judges after a peer review.

“Independent peer judges from across the broadcast journalism community reviewed the content and found it meritorious,” the spokeswoman said. 

The judges’ votes are anonymous, and they are not paid by NATAS.

Owda won a Peabody Award for her show earlier this year, and dedicated the award to “college students who are protesting, to all the people who took to the streets, to all the people at home who are participating in boycotts, to all the people worldwide, regardless of their religion, color, ethnicity, and kind.” ⁣

Owda kicked off her coverage of the October 7 massacre by defending it, according to The Jerusalem Post.

“For every action, there is a reaction. This means: What was expected after 75 years of occupation and 17 years of siege?” she wrote in Arabic. “What was expected of us? … Would the families of the prisoners remain silent?”

Since then, Owda has pushed anti-Israel rhetoric and falsehoods, and claimed that Israel is committing genocide and commits massacres “every second.”

In March, Owda, who nicknamed Israel, “IsraHell,” said it was a “lie” that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) workers participated in the October 7 massacre, and blamed the organization losing some funding over the reports as a “reason of [sic] the starvation of 2.3 million in Gaza.”

Nine UNRWA workers were fired this week after an investigation concluded there was sufficient evidence they may have been involved in the October 7 attacks, according to UNRWA Deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq. A report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) determined that there has been no famine in Gaza as of June.

For those who don’t know, IsraHell accused UNRWA workers last month of participating in 7Oct, and the majority of UNRWA western funders accepted the lie without IsraHell providing any evidence! And cut the funds! And that was a reason of the starvation of 2.3million in Gaza!

— Wizard_bisan1 (@wizardbisan) March 19, 2024

In July, Owda denied that Hezbollah had any part in killing 12 Druze children on a soccer field in northern Israel with a missile, calling it “propaganda.”

The winners of Owda’s category will be announced at a ceremony on September 25.