2023-10-25 17:36:05
The war and its escalation in Gaza are accompanied by a media narrative in line with the geopolitical interests of imperialism and its allies, which imply the colonialist expansion of Israel at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian people, recognized by the United Nations.
Palestinian journalists have patriotic feelings like all good citizens of any nation. They cannot get rid of that pride, under a supposed impartiality, when reporting the events in their country, because they also share the same fate and identical sufferings, difficulties and threats as the 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza, among whom 3,800 fatalities have already been reported.
Many of our Palestinian colleagues have been murdered or injured, while others face the indignation and horror that they witness, narrate, film or photograph daily, even in cases in which they recognize among the corpses the bodies of children, their own relatives, co-workers, neighbors or friends.
They are seen reporting among the rubble and fires; in hospitals packed with dead or injured people, at funerals; in the protests of the population, and they go so far as to be censored, silenced or terminated from their work when the companies abroad to which they pay taxes support Israel’s criminal policy.
The NGO ActionAid Ramallah reported that at least 18 Palestinian journalists have been murdered in the Gaza Strip since October 7, more than one a day, in a serious violation of international law, according to which press workers are protected. , as well as civilians, from deliberate and direct attacks.
The most recent victim was Rushdi Sarraj, a photojournalist who died when his house was bombed.
For its part, the Palestinian Journalists’ Union detailed that among the deceased are Ahmed Shehab, a programmer for Voice of Prisoners Radio, photojournalists Mohamed Al-Salhi and Mohamed Fayez Abu Matar, and Hisham Al-Nawajah, a photographer for the Khabar agency.
The list includes Muhammad Abu Rizq, of the Ain Media Foundation; Ibrahim Lafi, editor of a news agency, and communicators Asaad Shamlikh, Salam Mayma and Hossam Mubarak.
Fifty headquarters of institutions in the sector were also attacked, including the offices of the Qatari television station Al Jazeera, Palestine TV, the Maan and Khabar news agencies, as well as the Al Quds and Al Ayyam newspapers.
As a posthumous tribute, their bloody blue identification vests, helmets and cameras were placed next to the lifeless bodies of at least three journalists.
The Union itself denounced that the well-known press area of the Gaza Strip was a target of Israeli aviation, which caused the partial or complete destruction of the editorial offices of the newspaper Al-Ayyam, the Fadl Shanaa foundation, the Shehab agency, the radio Gaza FM and Ma’an Agency.
On the other hand, the Palestinian photographer Hossam Salem, photojournalist freelance who has been covering the Gaza Strip for the New York Times since 2018 has explained that “after years of coverage in the Gaza Strip, he was abruptly informed by a phone call from the US that the media would no longer have him. ”.
This also reveals, he denounced, “a continuous and systematic effort to distort the image of Palestinian journalists as people incapable of being trustworthy and integrity, simply because we cover the human rights violations that the Palestinian people suffer daily at the hands of the army.” Israeli”.
Many of these professional brother colleagues do not forget that in the 2014 Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip, 2,270 Palestinians were killed, including 17 press professionals.
In the history of the Union of Journalists of Cuba, hundreds of its members have fulfilled missions as war correspondents or practiced journalism in the mountains or clandestinely, with meritorious experience in risky missions during the fight against Gerardo’s tyrannical regimes. Machado and Fulgencio Batista.
And shortly after the triumph of the Revolution, a hundred and a half reporters, cameramen and photographers from film, television, radio and the print press served as war correspondents in different settings in Africa, Asia, Latin America and, even the Middle East itself.
With that valuable endorsement, let us also now raise our voices, together with that of Pablo de la Torriente Brau – the brave Cuban journalist who fell in Majadahonda, Spain, in 1936, correspondent for several publications in America – to demand that the crime be stopped, sanity prevails and the right of the Palestinian people to live in peace is forever ensured.
By : Presidency of the Union of Journalists of Cuba.
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