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Israeli Authorities Attack Journalists In Occupied Territories
CAIRO (IslamOnline) - It is said a picture is worth a thousand words, it is true. But clashes in the Occupied Territories reveal another saying: the picture is worth a thousand wounds.
Ever since the image of the 12-year-old boy by his father's side was circulated, showing the entire world the brutality of Israeli occupation and how civilians are trapped in the middle, media correspondents, cameramen and journalists have been prudently approaching clash sites, writing big flashy "Press" signs on their cars and wearing press vests so that they do not get caught in the middle of the fighting while doing their job.
The majority of reporters in the Occupied Territories are Palestinians or Arabs who work for international agencies but have been under the attack of the Israeli bullets, which do not discriminate between protestors or the press.
The Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ), a non partisan organization that defends the freedom of press and reporters objected to the rocketing of the Palestinian broadcasting towers on October 12th in the city of Ramallah.
In a letter it sent to the Israeli Prime Minister on October 18th, the CPJ said that the Voice of Palestine is an important source of news to international correspondents.
Press personnel themselves have also been targets of attack. On October 1st, Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana was wounded in the leg by a rubber bullet while covering street clashes in Hebron. The next day, he was struck in the same leg by live Israeli rounds. He said that the Israeli soldiers rained them with bullets at a street where there was no fighting at the time.
Khaled AlZaghri, a Palestinian reporter, known as the Quds cameraman, as he works for the Quds newspaper, has been beaten with batons on his head and shoulders and was shot at by Israeli soldiers who were standing less than a meter away from him, he received a bullet in his right leg, lost his camera and his film.
In testimony to the Palestinian Society for Human and Environmental Rights, AlZaghri said that this was the twentieth attack on him since he started working as a reporter and cameraman seven years ago. He has suffered injuries from rubber bullets, live ammunition and baton beatings.
An NBC reporter, Amer AlGaabri, was hit in the head in Hebron. Awad Awad, who words for AFP, has been beaten and his camera was taken from him when he was trying to document the clashes near al-Aqsa mosque.
The General Secretary of the Arab Journalist Association, Salah ElDeen Hafez has denounced Israeli Defense Force's (IDF) attacks on journalists.
"What is happening now in the Occupied Territories, reflect[s] the real face of Israel, and its violations of human rights of the civilians, whether they are physicians, reporters, children or old women," Hafez said.
Israeli practices against journalists violates the 1949 Geneva Convention protects civilians and journalists who are on professional missions.
Surprisingly enough, Israeli soldiers have been very selective in targeting journalists. Most, if not all, who received bullets or beatings were Palestinian reporters, their foreign counterparts haven been luckier, despite working for the same agencies.
The CPJ report on media reporting in the Occupied Territories and Israel confirms that the Israelis are selectively singling out members of the press who are of Palestinian descent. The report says that soldiers and Israeli police themselves frequently take turns harassing Palestinian journalists with beatings, forcible restraint, and arrests. Foreign reporters, on the other hand, have not generally been targeted, either historically or during the most recent clashes.
There is a wide spread belief among Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers that the Palestinian journalists are not just any journalists, but that they are enemy journalists who have to be stopped from harming the Jewish settlers like those in Hebron.
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