The Journalists´ Support Committee confirmed, during its semi-annual report for the year 2021, that there is a noticeable escalation of the occupation´s attacks on media freedoms in the occupied Palestinian territories, the intensity of which increased in May during the recent Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
In its report, the committee indicated that the violations varied between killing and targeting, whether the occupation planes launched missiles at the homes of journalists while they were safe in their homes, or shooting during the exercise of their journalistic duties, or destroying their equipment and homes, or arrest and detention against the background of publishing or expressing opinion, and threatening And prevented from reporting and traveling freely, and confiscating cards, identities, equipment and other methods of torture against journalists, to curb their work and obstruct the publication of what the occupation is committing against Palestinian citizens.
And she noted in her report that the occupation practices violations against journalists in violation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with regard to freedom of the press, explaining that the occupation government that signed these agreements did not abide by them, and on a daily basis violates freedoms and hunts journalists in violation of the treaties and agreements it signed. Which remained ink on paper, in light of the continuous targeting of the Palestinian people in all its sects.
The report covers the period between January 1 and June 30, 2021, indicating that violations against journalists and media professionals were committed intentionally and that excessive force was used without regard to the principles of discrimination and proportionality, violating all international, human rights and human rights covenants that guarantee freedom of journalistic work.
The semi-annual report documented (696) violations of press freedom by the Israeli occupation, including 101 violations in the Gaza Strip during the last aggression, while the number of violations by the Palestinian security services was unknown in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (126), 7 cases in Gaza, And 119 cases in the West Bank. The report also recorded more than 194 cases of violations by social media companies, in the context of combating Palestinian content and obliterating the crimes of the occupation against the people.
During the period covered by this report, the committee monitored the death of journalist Yusef Abu Hussein (33 years), in the Gaza Strip, after his house was bombed while he was inside it in the “Sheikh Radwan” neighborhood, north of Gaza City.
In the biannual report, (196) cases of assault and injury were recorded, distributed in the injury of 13 journalists in the Gaza Strip, as many of them suffered fractures, wounds, burns and many injuries, as a result of direct bombing, or during the destruction of their homes, or after being hit by shrapnel of missiles. Occupation while they practice their work in covering the aggression on the homes of innocent civilians, agricultural lands and government, humanitarian and relief offices, or during the destruction of their media institutions.
The report also monitored the injury of 183 in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, in which the occupation and its settlers used all their attacks on journalists, targeting them by firing live bullets and rubber, sound bombs and poison gas, beating them severely and dragging a group of them, including women journalists, and spraying dozens of journalists with waste water, to prevent them from covering Especially in the occupied city of Jerusalem and the “Sheikh Jarrah” neighborhood.
The report showed that more than (111) journalists were arrested, summoned, detained, housed, expelled from Jerusalem or entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
While it documented (49) violations, which ranged from extending the detention of journalists more than once prior to their release, and confirming sentences against journalists, issuing sentences against others, and postponing the trial of some of them, who are still in occupation prisons.
The report also monitored (149) cases in which journalists were prevented from practicing their work and covering events, and the Palestine TV crew was prevented from working in the occupied city of Jerusalem for the fourth time, and incitement to dismiss a journalist from his work, in an attempt by the occupation to obliterate the crimes it is committing against citizens, in addition To document one case (a travel ban), and seven cases of incitement and accusation.
The occupation did not stop at this huge amount of violations, but went on to destroy, destroy and close more than (61) media institutions in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the destruction of the occupation aircraft in the Gaza Strip during the recent aggression, more than 59 media institutions, media and artistic production companies, printing houses and houses. It was published, between total and partial destruction, and the closure of the Palestine TV office for the fourth time in a row in Jerusalem and the occupied interior.
As for the incursions and raids launched by the occupation on the homes of journalists, printing presses and other media institutions, the report recorded (65) cases in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, including the damage of 23 homes of journalists, and 5 vehicles during the aggression on the Gaza Strip, in whole or in part, as well as the confiscation of Press equipment, equipment and materials for journalists´ homes and media institutions, and press cards in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, which amounted to (24).
The report focused on the violations and harassment that journalists are subjected to in the occupation prisons, which amounted to (32) violations, represented by assault, torture and cruel treatment, preventing them from meeting their lawyers and their family, submitting an indictment to continue their detention, refusing to release them, medical negligence in their treatment, and imposing fines Exorbitant money and depriving them of their legitimate rights.
With regard to combating Palestinian digital content, the Israeli occupation forces, in coordination with the Department of Social Media and in collusion with the FBI and the US Department of Commerce, closed Palestinian websites, and blocked, deleted and restricted many accounts of journalists and media organizations, some of whom were monitored and promised (194) Violation, in the context of fighting the Palestinian content and denying the Palestinian narrative.
