The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) said that last February witnessed a total of 23 attacks against media freedoms in Palestine, 18 of which were committed by the Israeli occupation and five by Palestinian groups.
The Center noted in its monthly report that what was recorded in February represents less than half of what was witnessed in January, which preceded the attacks against media freedoms, which amounted to 57 violations committed by the Israeli occupation 37 of them, while 20 Palestinians committed violations.
The report said that the Israeli forces and authorities committed a total of 18 attacks against journalists and media freedoms, 11 of them in the West Bank and 7 in the Gaza Strip.
"Most of the Israeli attacks are part of the serious attacks on the lives of journalists and media liberties. Foremost among them are the physical injuries that show testimonies of the victims and the circumstances in which the soldiers deliberately target journalists to keep them away from the field, In the firing of gas bombs directly at the bodies of journalists and on sensitive parts of their bodies often, as happened with the free photographer Mu´tasim Allah Riyad Abu Ezzar, who was injured on February 1 with a gas grenade in his head while covering the events of the peaceful return march in Gaza, causing Its bleeding and break the bearish rupture the brain membrane and stayed in the hospital two weeks as well as a blood clot in his / hospital review periodically obliged to take a cross-sectional picture of his head ct to check on the status. "
"The number of physical injuries recorded in February was nine (including Abu Ezzar), which represents more than half of the Israeli attacks recorded this month and the following are: Photographer Mashhour Hassan Mahmoud Al-Hawah (fragment in his left foot) Nabil Abu Sharbi (rubber bullets in the right thigh), Muhammad al-Za´noun (a gas bomb in the left shoulder causing him to take off his shoulder), Wael Mohammed al-Sharafi (bullet wound in his right leg), Abdel Rahman Hani Abdel Qader Kahlout (a gas bomb in his left shoulder caused him a third degree burn and a minor fracture), Munib Samir Abu Hatab (bomb 16 In the abdomen), and Mohammed Sami Barbakh was injured by a gas grenade in the hand.
In addition to these attacks, the Israeli occupation authorities continued to arrest the photographer of the Turkish Anatolia news agency Mustafa Kharouf since January 22, and turned him into the prison of deportation "Gifun" in Ramle in preparation for his deportation from Jerusalem and the whole of the Palestinian territories. That a child returned with his father, mother and brothers from Algeria where he was born.
The Israeli human rights organization Hamoked, which has been following the case of Kharouf for several years, said that Israeli police arrested the journalist Kharouf on January 22, one day after an appeal was filed against the Israeli Interior Ministry´s decision to reject his family unification request. And his family, a refusal that came under the category of "security reasons" and was transferred to the deportation prison "Gifun". While the Israeli authorities object to "security reasons" for not allowing the journalist to be reunited and thus expelled from Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories where he has lived for 20 years and has no residency or citizenship for any other country,
Regarding the Palestinian violations against media freedoms, Mada pointed out that the month of February witnessed a clear decline in its number, with a total of only 5 Palestinian violations, compared with 20 violations recorded in January.
Two of these violations occurred in the West Bank and three in the Gaza Strip. The most prominent of these violations was the issuance of a declaration by the Government Information Office of the Ministry of Information in the Gaza Strip to all journalists in the Gaza Strip, A special press release issued by the Government Information Office to allow them to hold any press conference or to obtain any information from any public institution or ministry, arrest journalist Tawfiq Abu Jarad in Gaza and subject him to ill-treatment amounting to torture and arrest the Palestinian intelligence service in Bethlehem. Mohammed Mahmoud Girls Rum Ali Allan Dhere after being summoned. "
