By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

The crew of TRT Haber was assaulted in Tel Aviv while on the job and accused of being spies for Hamas and Hezbollah.

A TRT Haber crew was assaulted in Tel Aviv on Wednesday while covering the aftermath of the Iranian missile attack on the city Tuesday night.

Footage of the incident shows an Israeli cyclist harassing the TV correspondent while on the job and accusing him of being a spy for the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and the Lebanese resistance party Hezbollah.

“You are a spy. You are a spy for the Hamas and Hezbollah,” the Israeli man kept saying to the TV reporter.

The reporter endlessly tried to convince the Israeli man that he works for an accredited news outlet and that he was only trying to do his job according to the laws and not taking any footage of military areas or other areas where filming is banned, but the man refused to listen to reason.

An Israeli man harassed a TRT reporter and cameraman broadcasting live in Tel Aviv on October 2, pressuring him to cut off the broadcast pic.twitter.com/Tl6wQc6wqQ

— TRT World (@trtworld) October 2, 2024

“You are transmitting lies, I saw you,” the Israeli cyclist told the reporter while asking him to go back to Türkiye.

The TV reporter desperately asked the man to leave so he could continue doing his job but the Israeli man showered him with curses.

Not a First

This is not the first time a TRT journalist has been assaulted by Israelis, according to the TV channel.

TRT said that the Israeli occupation authorities have “previously deliberately obstructed the work of TRT network correspondents, including (TRT Arabic), during their work in the Gaza envelope areas and inside the Green Line, and threatened some of them with death.”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned in August Israel’s attack on Mohammad al-Zeineen, a cameraman for TRT Arabi who sustained an eye injury when the Israeli occupation army shelled a car close to a tent for journalists by Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

Palestine Chronicle’s Star Contributor Killed in Gaza – Remembering Wafa Aludaini

The ministry considered the attack “an effort by bloodstained Israel to conceal the truth.”

“We stand in solidarity with all journalists who are tirelessly working to expose Israel’s oppression to the world,” the ministry wrote in a statement on X as reported by Anadolu news agency.

Earlier in June, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) jointly condemned the attack on a Palestinian journalist and other local and foreign journalists by right-wing Israeli illegal settlers on the “nationalist flag march” on June 5 in the old city of occupied Jerusalem.  

“The attacks that happened during the nationalist flag parade are despicable and they must be thoroughly investigated. Israel’s police must take further action to protect journalists, particularly Palestinian journalists, ensure that the perpetrators are punished and end the climate of impunity in Israel,” IFJ Deputy General Secretary Tim Dawson said at the time.

Systematic Targeting

Israel has targeted media outlets since the start of its genocide on Gaza on October 8, the ban of Al-Jazeera in Israel in May followed by the closure of its Ramallah bureau in the occupied West Bank in September is yet another example.

Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip have been systematically targeted by the Israeli occupation army during the raging war.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war against the Gaza Strip, a total of 173 Palestinian journalists have been killed, and more than 190 others have been injured, while 87 media institutions have been destroyed, according to the Health Ministry in the Strip.

This has been met with wide condemnation from various international organizations requesting protection for Palestinian journalists.

Palestinian Journalists Killed in Gaza – RSF Holds ‘Flash Protests’ in 10 Countries

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) organized late September “flash protests” in 10 countries across the globe to pay homage to Palestinian journalists killed during the nearly one-year genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The non-governmental organization (NGO) said in a statement on September 26 that the protests are organized to pay homage to the over 130 Palestinian journalists killed by the Israeli occupation army, “32 of whom were murdered while working.”

The ‘flash protests’ were held the whole day on Thursday in Germany, Brazil, Spain, the United States, Britain, France, Senegal, Switzerland, Taiwan and Tunisia.

RSF announced that the aim behind the “global awareness campaign” is to “alert the international public to the gravity of this crisis: the alarming rate at which these journalists are being killed is jeopardizing the right to free and independent information.”

Killings of Palestinian Journalists Continue – Aided by Uninterrupted Flow of US Arms

“The massacre of journalists in Gaza must end. The Israeli army’s elimination of journalists in Gaza – over 130 killed in less than a year – threatens to create a complete media blackout in the blockaded enclave,” RSF’s Director General Thibaut Bruttin said.

“These attacks target not only the Palestinian press, but the international public’s right to information that is reliable, free, independent, and pluralist from one of the most closely watched conflict zones on the planet,” he added.

Bruttin ended by demanding, “protection for Gaza’s journalists, an end to impunity, and that foreign journalists be given access to the strip. Our right to information is at stake.”

(The Palestine Chronicle)