Media, human rights groups urge EU to suspend accords with Israel, impose sanctions
60 organizations accuse Israel of killing ‘unprecedented number’ of journalists, committing other press freedom violations as it fights Hamas; IDF says it never targets journalists
Some 60 media and rights organizations on Monday urged the European Union to suspend a cooperation accord with Israel and impose sanctions, accusing the country of “massacring journalists” as it battles the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
“In response to the unprecedented number of journalists killed and other repeated press freedom violations by the Israeli authorities since the start of the war with Hamas, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and 59 other organizations are calling on the European Union to suspend its Association Agreement with Israel and to adopt targeted sanctions against those responsible,” the groups said in a joint statement.
The call came ahead of a meeting by EU foreign ministers in Brussels on August 29.
The period following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s retaliatory assault on the Gaza Strip “has been the deadliest for journalists in decades,” the letter said.
“More than 130 Palestinian journalists and media professionals have been killed by the Israeli armed forces in Gaza since 7 October. At least 30 of them were killed in the course of their work, three Lebanese journalists and an Israeli journalist have also been (killed) during the same period,” it said.
“The targeted or indiscriminate killing of journalists, whether committed deliberately or recklessly, is a war crime,” it added.
Israel has denied targeting journalists in the war zone and said it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians, blaming the high death toll on the fact that Hamas fights in densely populated urban areas and embeds itself deliberately among civilians who are used as human shields.
In a statement on December 16, the Israeli army said that it “has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists.”
Israel has presented evidence that several Palestinian journalists working in Gaza have also been active members of terror groups like Hamas. Three Hamas hostages rescued in June also said they were held captive in the home of an Al Jazeera journalist with ties to Hamas.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, two Israeli journalists, Roee Idan and Yaniv Zohar, were killed by Hamas terrorists inside Israel on October 7. Two other Israeli journalists were also killed in the massacre that day, Shai Regev and Ayelet Arnin, but the CPJ removed them from its initial totals because it said they were not working that day. Oded Lifshitz, a lifelong journalist, is among the hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
EU’s association agreements with non-member countries are treaties that govern bilateral relations, including trade.
The agreement’s Article 2 stipulates “respect for human rights and democratic principles,” said Julie Majerczak, the head of RSF’s Brussels office.
“The Israeli government is clearly trampling on this article. The EU, which is Israel’s leading trade partner, must draw the necessary conclusions from this and must do everything to ensure that the (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu government stops massacring journalists and respects the right to information and press freedom by opening media access to Gaza,” she said.
Among the signatories were the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel in which thousands of terrorists rampaged through the south, murdering some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
In response, Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza with the proclaimed objectives of getting the hostages back and dismantling Hamas.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 340.
