2023-12-07 20:59:16
Two months after the Hamas attack on Israel, which led to an unprecedented response by the Jewish state army against the Gaza Strip, no journalists have been able to independently enter the Palestinian enclave. As on the first day of the conflict, information on the situation in the area therefore rests on the shoulders of media professionals already present on site before October 7.
Mostly Palestinian journalists, often freelance, who send videos, photos or articles to international media in grueling working conditions – displacement, lack of water, food, power cuts, etc. – while they worry about their loved ones.
63 journalists dead since the start of the conflict
They pay the highest price for this commitment. According to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 63 journalists have died since October 7, including 56 in Gaza. Most were killed by Israeli strikes. Asked by Agence France-Presse (AFP) and the Reuters agency, the Jewish state’s army responded at the end of October that it could not guarantee the safety of journalists in Gaza.
“For the moment, our journalists are stuck in Gaza,” immediately wrote Phil Chetwynd, AFP information director, on the agency’s website. “They have no possibility of leaving the territory. The AFP management is in regular contact with the Israeli army. She tells us that the media are not being deliberately targeted, but that the safety of our journalists cannot be guaranteed. »
Call for opening of Rafah border post
Until when will the Israeli army padlock Gaza? After several non-public requests, the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) openly called, Thursday, December 7, for the opening of the Rafah border crossing, in the south of the Gaza Strip, “so that journalists can finally come and go on both sides of the border”. And to remember that, “in two months of war, no reporters have been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip through Rafah, clearly undermining the media’s ability to cover the conflict.”
The information “blackout” that RSF feared in the early days of the conflict, however, did not occur. Despite the immense difficulties of their task, journalists in Gaza continue to report. “There is an attempt by Israel to control information coming from Gaza”, however, notes Christophe Deloire, the secretary general of RSF. A reference to the incursions into the Gaza Strip, offered for a few hours to journalists by the Israeli army who, in return, demand control of the images.
In neighboring Lebanon, journalists are also bearing the brunt of the conflict. Published Thursday, December 7, a Reuters investigation into the bombing which killed one of its journalists and injured six reporters, including two from AFP, in southern Lebanon on October 13, pointed to tank fire Israelis.
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