183 Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists, PJS says
A total of 183 Israeli violations were committed against Palestinian journalists in the occupied territories since the beginning of this year, today said the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS).
On World Press Freedom Day, May 3, the PJS said it has documented 183 Israeli crimes against Palestinian journalists since the beginning of 2021.
The PJS said that 9 journalists were injured by Israeli forces bullets and hit by teargas canisters, and 15 were suffocated from teargas inhalation.
It said that the Israeli occupation forces have detained 14 Palestinian journalists, prevented them from doing their work, arrested 67 journalists, summoned for interrogation 12 journalists, and physically attacked 22 journalists.
It also documented 10 raids for Palestinian journalists houses.
It said that Facebook was involved in the violations against Palestinian journalists when it censored their content and accounts, explaining that it has documented 50 violations against freedom of the press, as Facebook either blocked Palestinian publications or closed accounts of journalists and activists under feeble excuses.
Other social media, including TikTok, Whatsapp, and Instagram, were also involved in the violations against Palestinian journalists as the PJS documented 15 violations.
The PJS stressed it is proceeding with its domestic procedures in the International Criminal Court on Israel’s violation of Palestinian journalists, including murdering some and maiming others.
‘Israel’ violently represses journalists documenting its crimes against Palestinians – chiefly targeting Palestinian reporters but not exclusively – because narrative control is a crucial component of political control.
Between the year 2000 and September 2018, Israel killed 43 journalists in the West Bank and Gaza according to the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedom, MADA.
During the first six months of Gaza’s Great March of Return, a series of protests which began in March 2018, Israel carried out dozens of attacks targeting journalists. These incidents include an Israeli sniper murdering the journalist Yaser Murtaja while he stood some 350 meters from the Gaza boundary wearing a vest and a helmet clearly identifying him as a member of the press.
In total, MADA found, in just two months in 2018, from 30 March, the first day of the Great March of Return, through 30 May, there were 46 injuries to journalists in Gaza from live ammunition or explosive bullets.
The high toll, MADA concludes, is a “direct result of the impunity of the Israeli occupation army and officers for the crimes they have committed in the past years.”
It also said that the Israeli occupation authorities are still incarcerating 12 Palestinian journalists in its detention facilities, four of whom are held without a charge or trial.
