Skip to main content

Palestinian journalists continue to face ‘systematic oppression’ by Israeli authorities

ISRAELI authorities are continuing the “systematic oppression” of Palestinian journalists, including opening fire on reporters and shutting down media offices, the Prisoners and Freed Prisoners Commission said today.

Those working in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, the scene of mass protests over forced evictions of Palestinian families from their own homes, have been subjected to brutal treatment by Israeli security services, the group said.

According to the commission, Israeli action against the Palestinian journalists includes detention, investigation, confiscating equipment, suppressing freedom of movement, opening live fire, raiding media offices and closing them.

At least 170 Palestinian journalists were injured and 33 media organisations bombed during Israel’s recent bombardment of the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS).

Several high-rise buildings that housed dozens of foreign media offices, including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera TV, were destroyed.

The union is working with international journalists to take a case against Israel to the International Criminal Court for war crimes after the killing of radio journalist Yousef Abu Hussein, who was killed during an Israeli air strike on his home in Gaza.

It has also reiterated appeals for a boycott of Israeli media and Israeli reporters who enter the Palestinian territories as “occupiers” and “under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces,” accusing them of a “dangerous distortion” of reality for Palestinians.

“Palestinian journalists and mass media are subjected to Israeli suppression, sometimes in front of Israeli journalists, or with their support. The PJS considers any assistance to Israeli media and journalists as an encouragement of these Israeli crimes,” the union said in a statement in December.

And the PJS has called for accurate use of terminology by reporters and has urged them not to repeat Israeli propaganda. The union is appealing for journalists to name Israel’s regime as apartheid, a call backed by the global BDS national committee and detailed in a recent Human Rights Watch report.

But its plea was rejected by Britain’s National Union of Journalists at its annual conference earlier this month, with leading executive committee member and de-facto international spokesman Jim Boumelha dismissing those who backed the PJS stance as “pseudo-revolutionaries.”

OWNED BY OUR READERS

We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society.

 

 

Become a supporter

Fighting fund

You've Raised:£ 13,288
We need:£ 4,712
3 Days remaining
Donate today