Foreign press group slams police for reportedly breaking CNN journalist’s wrist

An international media association criticizes what it calls an “unprovoked assault” by Israeli police on journalists in Jerusalem, which it said left a CNN producer with a fractured wrist.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) says police officers last night “unnecessarily and aggressively repelled a group of journalists who were doing their jobs, documenting individuals who were praying outside the walls of the Old City.”

It says police detained several journalists, damaging photographic equipment and confiscating memory cards.

“During the assault, one Israeli officer fractured the wrist of a CNN producer,” the FPA says in a statement.

“None of this is acceptable,” adds the association, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

An AFP photographer at the scene says a small group of journalists had been documenting Muslims trying to perform the evening Taraweeh prayers outside the Old City walls, when a group of police suddenly arrived and “violently attacked the worshipers and journalists covering the event.”

A foreign journalist tells AFP that police “beat the CNN producer and some other journalists with batons,” adding that “at least one Palestinian was detained.”

AFP has asked the police for comment on the incident.

Israeli authorities have closed holy sites in East Jerusalem’s Old City for security reasons since the outbreak of the war with Iran on February 28.

The FPA calls on police to “immediately take action against the officers involved in this unprovoked assault and to act in the future to safeguard press freedoms, rather than trample upon them.”

In an X post, the Union of Journalists in Israel says it is “appalled” by the police conduct and urges the police commissioner to “immediately suspend the officers involved.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.