High Court to hear Foreign Press Association’s petition for media access to Gaza

The High Court of Justice is set to hear this morning a petition by the Foreign Press Association requesting the court order the defense minister and the IDF to revoke the blanket ban on independent press access to the Gaza Strip, which has been in place since the beginning of the war with Hamas following the terror group’s invasion and massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

The petition was filed a year ago, but the state requested nine deferrals for submitting its response which were all granted by the court, while Israel’s strikes against Iran led to the postponement of a hearing which had been scheduled for June.

The FPA argues in its petition that the blanket ban on independent access to Gaza for journalists “contravenes the foundational principles of the state as a democratic country, and represents a severe, unreasonable and disproportionate injury to the freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and freedom of employment for journalists and the right to information.”

The association has requested from the court that it order the respondents to draw up “clear policies and organized procedures” for press access to the war-torn territory, and to issue an interim order either to enable independent press access to Gaza until a final ruling or to “significantly increase” the access granted to journalists as embedded reporters with IDF forces, which it has facilitated during the war.

The FPA says that the IDF has granted limited opportunities for embeds to foreign reporters compared to access granted to Israeli reporters, has chosen which reporters can enter itself mostly without consulting the FPA, and that the embeds are tightly controlled and restrict full coverage of the war.

The state has argued in response to the petition that the High Court already rejected an FPA petition on the same issue in January 2024, determining that there was “no vested right” for anyone, including journalists, to receive a permit to enter the Gaza Strip.

The court ruled at the time that the restrictions were justified on security grounds, asserting that allowing journalists inside Gaza could give away operational details, including troop locations, in a way that could “put them in real danger.”

The state’s response was filed in June this year, before the current ceasefire came into effect.