AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): According to the Palestinian Committee to Protect Journalists (PCPJ), Israeli forces arrested 9 Palestinian journalists just in October.

15 other Palestinian journalists were reportedly injured by Israeli forces during the operation. According to the latest report from the Palestinian POWs Club, the number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails has reached 4,600, including 200 children and 35 women, and 500 are in “administrative detention”.

Earlier, the PCPJ said in a report that the Israeli government had violated the rights of Palestinian media workers 652 times since the start of the year. The report also states that the IDF attacked journalists on several occasions during this period. During the 11-day war on Gaza in May, a journalist was killed and 59 media centers were damaged by Israeli airstrikes.

The committee called on the international community to protect Palestinian journalists who remain the target of Israeli attacks. He also called for pressure on Tel Aviv to release 24 captured journalists.

In a January annual report, the Palestinian Journalists Union (PJS) claimed that Israel violated the rights of Palestinian journalists 490 times in 2020.

Systemic violation of international laws

The Israeli government continues to detain Palestinian journalists in violation of international law. The torture and detention of journalists is a total violation not only of Israeli domestic law but also of international law. Reporters Without Borders (RWB) also warned last month that journalists and families of prisoners in Palestine risk being arbitrarily detained after completely unfair sentences.

Elsewhere in the world, in Turkey for example, Western reactions are being made to violations of journalists’ rights. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights reacted to the Turkish government’s detention of journalists, declaring that temporary and long-term sentences for journalists in Turkey are simply based on “suspected cases” and that there is no convincing evidence to deny journalists their right to liberty before any legal proceedings.

Cases of violation of journalists’ rights in the occupied Palestinian territories have been much more numerous than in Turkey, but Western institutions choose to turn a blind eye.

It was in the shadow of this Western blindness that Tel Aviv razed the Al-Jalaa media tower in Gaza City with bunker bombs that penetrated the foundations of the tower, which housed the offices of ‘Associated Press and Aljazeera. Images of the bombing were broadcast live by world media. The “shocking and terrifying” attacks, an apparent war crime, have remained largely ignored by the international community and Western governments.

Israeli officials have repeatedly proven that they do not hesitate to violate international laws in light of the silence and support of the West. Last week, the Israeli envoy to the UN tore up a Human Rights Watch report condemning Tel Aviv. The Israeli regime has violated UN resolutions for many years, and settlements in the West Bank are the most obvious form of violation of international law.

Seeking to cover up crimes

Tel Aviv knows that the more it cracks down on journalists, the more it can stifle the flow of information about the Palestinian situation. Therefore, the regular attacks on journalists come with the aim of preventing global awareness of the realities in the occupied territories.

The IDF regularly attacks, strikes, arrests, seizes equipment from journalists covering protests against settlement projects, increasing the cost of reporting on the situation in Palestine so that a limited number of journalists can cover. With risks of long-term detention and inhumane conduct by Israeli forces, journalists generally have great difficulty and restrictions in covering their stories from Palestine.

In addition, there is a policy of systemic censorship followed by Israeli officials. The Israeli regime, despite its democratic claims, has put in place laws for martial surveillance of news and media productions and therefore maintains a strict regime of censorship. The Israeli Military Censorship (CMI) is a unit of the Israeli army that ensures the publication of information regarding the military network and general security. The IMC signed a “censorship agreement” in 1966 with representatives of the media. The Israeli media are governed by a 1945 emergency law imposed when Palestine was under British Mandate. This censorship includes the content published on television and radio networks and in newspapers and even books, and before its publication it must be examined by the competent center, and which is dangerous from the point of view of military censorship should be removed from the content. Of course, content related to Palestine and against the favor of the Israelis is easily removed and censored. Tel Aviv has full control over cyberspace and communications networks in the Palestinian territories.

The cover-up of Israeli crimes in Palestine takes place both through the detention and silence of journalists and also officially through government agencies on cyberspace and Tel Aviv-controlled communications networks. These actions explain why Israeli crimes are found less frequently in the international media.

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