‘Shame’ Israel still denying media access to Gaza, watchdog says

The Foreign Press Association condemns Israel for continuing to deny independent access to foreign journalists nearly two years into the war in Gaza.

“Israel must stop killing journalists in Gaza and give the foreign press free and independent access to the territory,” says the association, which has more than 350 members working for foreign media outlets in Israel and the territories.

“This continued and institutionalized delay in the process is a mark of shame on Israel and its allies, who have too often chosen not to speak up in defense of basic press freedoms,” the board of the association says in a statement.

The association points out that Israel’s Supreme Court has repeatedly postponed hearings on its petition demanding access to Gaza.

The association “notes with dismay that it has been a full year since it submitted its second petition to the Israeli Supreme Court for free and independent access to Gaza,” the statement says.

“Despite the urgency, the court has repeatedly agreed to the government’s request for delays and postponed one hearing after another.”

The association also slammed Israel for targeting Palestinian journalists operating inside Gaza.

“Palestinian journalists have been directly targeted. Places where they habitually gathered have been bombed,” it says, adding that at least 200 of them have been killed by Israeli fire.

“Despite all of these dangers, they continue to inform the world while facing not only violence, but also hunger and repeated displacement.”

Last month, Israeli strikes on a hospital in Gaza killed more than 20 people, including five journalists, according to local authorities.

The FPA also criticized Israeli leaders and the military for going to “extreme lengths to discredit the work of our Palestinian colleagues, and to a great extent, the work of the foreign press as a whole.”

“This campaign of delegitimization has created and amplified hazardous working conditions for journalists, leading to the normalization of incitement, harassment, and attacks on foreign press both from Israeli civilians and members of Israel’s security forces.”

Israel’s military has accused many of the journalists killed in its strikes of being “terrorists,” members of the Palestinian terror groups Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

During the war, the Israeli military has taken only a handful of foreign journalists into Gaza via military embeds.