Emily Harris
International Correspondent Emily Harris is based in Jerusalem as part of NPR's Mideast team. Her post covers news related to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She began this role in March of 2013.
Over her career, Harris has served in multiple roles within public media. She first joined NPR in 2000, as a general assignment reporter. A prolific reporter often filing two stories a day, Harris covered major stories including 9/11 and its aftermath, including the impact on the airline industry; and the anthrax attacks. She also covered how policies set in Washington are implemented across the country.
In 2002, Harris worked as a Special Correspondent on NOW with Bill Moyer, focusing on investigative storytelling. In 2003 Harris became NPR's Berlin Correspondent, covering Central and Eastern Europe. In that role, she reported regularly from Iraq, leading her to be a key member of the NPR team awarded a 2005 Peabody Award for coverage of the region.
Harris left NPR in December 2007 to become a host for a live daily program, Think Out Loud, on Oregon Public Broadcasting. Under her leadership Harris's team received three back to back Gracie Awards for Outstanding Talk Show, and a share in OPB's 2009 Peabody Award for the series "Hard Times." Harris's other awards include the RIAS Berlin Commission's first-place radio award in 2007 and second-place in 2006. She was a John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University in 2005-2006.
A seasoned reporter, she was asked to help train young journalist through NPR's "Next Generation" program. She also served as editorial director for Journalism Accelerator, a project to bring journalists together to share ideas and experiences; and was a writer-in-residence teaching radio writing to high school students.
One of the aspects of her work that most intrigues her is why people change their minds and what inspires them to do so.
Outside of work, Harris has drafted a screenplay about the Iraq war and for another project is collecting stories about the most difficult parts of parenting.
She has a B.A. in Russian Studies from Yale University.
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Israel's long-standing policy has been to isolate Hamas. But in a rare exception, Israel does permit Qatar to send large sums of money for projects in Gaza, the territory run by Hamas. -
The human rights organization says Hamas deliberately killed at least 23 Palestinians during the war with Israel last summer. Those killed were accused by Hamas of collaborating with Israel. -
The head of FIFA visited Israel and the West Bank this week, where Palestinians are petitioning to expel Israel from soccer's governing body — and its biggest international tournaments. -
Ayelet Shaked is a secular Jew who belongs to a religious party closely tied to West Bank settlers. She's faced criticism for controversial statements about Palestinians. -
Tesfai Kidane, an Eritrean migrant, made his way to Israel, where he was detained. He returned to Africa. It's not clear what happened next, but he was killed recently by the Islamic State in Libya. -
Dozens of soldiers have offered testimonials saying indiscriminate fire was tolerated, even encouraged in last summer's war in Gaza. This contributed to the high numbers of civilian deaths, they say. -
In Tel Aviv on Sunday, Israeli security forces battled several thousand people. Discrimination and police brutality toward Israelis of Ethiopian descent were at the heart of the demonstrations.
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Mazel tov, it's a global baby boy! The egg was from a South African donor; the sperm was from Israel. The surrogate mom lived in Nepal. And when the dads came to meet their son, an earthquake struck. -
Palestinians often buy and sell land without title deeds, or proof of ownership. That's because most of the land doesn't have them. It's a problem dating back generations. -
"Business-like" is how Obama characterized his relationship with the Israeli prime minister. He says the rift is based on fundamental differences in policy regarding the future of a Palestinian state.
