The letter ended with a long list of demands addressed to EU leaders to exert pressure on Israel to revoke all the violations it is committing on press freedom.
In a letter addressed to the European Union over 60 international media organizations implored the EU to “take action against the Israeli authorities’ unprecedented killing of journalists and other violations of media freedom” and requested a halt to the EU-Israel Association Agreement in addition to imposing targeted sanctions on those responsible.
The letter addressed to the EU High Representative Josep Borrell, European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and EU member state foreign ministries described the Israeli authorities’ unprecedented killing of journalists and other violations of media freedom as a breach of the obligations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
The organizations said that these practices “are part of widespread and systematic abuses committed by Israeli authorities in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and elsewhere, as documented or acknowledged by Israeli, Palestinian and international NGOs, UN experts, the International Court of Justice, and in a request for arrest warrants by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.”
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In line with this, the signatories saw that these violations deserved the halt of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and the enforcement of targeted sanctions against those in charge.
The letter regretted that the “EU 27 governments are yet to unanimously acknowledge, attribute and condemn the Israeli forces’ crimes in Gaza.”
The sixty-plus organizations that signed the letter accused the Israeli government of adopting since October 7 a series of unmatched steps to restrict media freedom resulting in a “censorship regime.”
The signatories requested urgent action concerning a number of Israeli violations namely; the unprecedented killings of journalists, targeted killings of journalists, the ban on independent media access to Gaza, record-high arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, allegations of torture and mistreatment, censorship, and egregious limitations of media freedom and failure to investigate or hold perpetrators to account, per the letter.
The letter labeled the killing of over 100 Palestinian journalists in Gaza since October 7 as “the deadliest period for journalists in the decades that these organizations have been gathering data,” in reference to data collected by press freedom organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
It stressed that many of the journalists killed were wearing press insignia emphasizing that the killing and displacement of the press corps in Gaza means that fewer local journalists are left to report on the hostilities.
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The letter revealed that CPJ found that the Israeli occupation army “directly targeted and killed at least three journalists, and CPJ is researching at least 10 other deaths that indicate possible targeting” by the Israeli army.
It added that RSF suspects the number of targeted killings to be higher adding that the “targeted or indiscriminate killing of journalists, if committed deliberately or recklessly, is a war crime.”
It condemned Israel’s failure to hold those in charge of these crimes to justice.
The signatories spoke at length in their letter about the detention of tens of journalists by the Israeli occupation army often without charge and highlighted the allegations of torture and mistreatment of journalists in Gaza.
The letter criticized Israel’s “ban on journalists entering Gaza — both foreign nationals and Israeli and Palestinian journalists” and defined it as “unprecedented in modern times.”
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The signatories also condemned the expansion of “impediments and significant impairments to independent reporting within Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories” since October 7.
The letter went on to criticize the Israeli banning of international news outlets such as Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press, and the censorship imposed within Israel itself.
“Press freedom has been curtailed by an increasing number of banned articles, government officials’ anti-press rhetoric, alleged attempts to seemingly control news outlets, and attacks on Israeli reporters, among other threats,” the letter read.
The letter ended with a long list of demands addressed to EU leaders to exert pressure on Israel to revoke all the violations it is committing on press freedom to ensure the protection of journalists, free access of journalists of all nationalities to Gaza and holding all those in charge of the crimes committed against journalists accountable.
(PC, WAFA)
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