Gazan Filmmaker With Ties To Palestinian Terror Group Wins Emmy

A Gazan woman with ties to a U.S.-designated terror organization won an award at the 2024 News and Documentary Emmy Awards Wednesday night. 

Bisan Owda, who was once a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), won Outstanding Hard News Feature Story: Short Form category for her Al Jazeera show “It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive.” 

Owda’s video series documents her experience following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, during which the terrorist group and Gazan civilians massacred and captured Israelis. 

The Daily Wire previously reported on Owda’s terrorist ties, including evidence that she was a member of the PFLP, which the United States lists as a terror organization. The Marxist terror group claimed 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.”

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

“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 on the reception committee to welcome the crowds, according to the Palestinian outlet Al Watan Voice. 

In photos, Owda was seen on stage addressing the crowd, which included young children and masked men holding knives and Hezbollah flags.

Owda, who this year was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, also helped host the following year’s PFLP anniversary celebration, where she opened the event with a moment of silence “in honor of the souls of our revolution’s martyrs,” according to the PFLP’s website.

John Lawrence, a senior executive producer at AJ+, accepted Owda’s award during the New York City ceremony.

Over 150 entertainment industry professionals signed a letter organized by the Jewish non-profit Creative Community for Peace in August calling for Owda’s nomination to be revoked due to her terrorist ties. Signatories included music and film executives and celebrities like Legally Blonde actress Selma Blair, David Draiman of Disturbed, Will & Grace actress Debra Messing, and Power Rangers creator Haim Saban.

National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences President and CEO Adam Sharp, whose organization runs the Emmys, responded to the letter, stating the group was “unable to corroborate these reports, nor has it been able, to date, to surface any evidence of more contemporary or active involvement by Owda with the PFLP organization.”

He added that nominees are judged by independent judges and that the Academy  “does not intervene in or countermand the judgment of these journalists except when competition rules have been violated.”

Also in attendance at the awards ceremony were Itay and Maya Regev, who had been held hostage by Hamas. The Regevs inspired Yoram Zak’s film “Brother & Sister in Captivity,” which was nominated in a different category than Owda’s. It did not win an award, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The film recounts how the Regev siblings were shot, taken hostage to Gaza, and operated on without anesthesia before their release in the November hostage deal. After a long recovery involving extensive physical therapy, Maya has reportedly only recently regained the ability to walk.

Owda and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences did not respond to requests for comment.