“Noticeable increasing of the Israeli’s assault on the freedoms in the occupied Palestinian territories, which reached its peak in February 2020,” Journalist Support Committee confirmed in its annual report for the year 2020.
The report illustrated the extent of the Israeli forces excessive targeting of the Palestinian journalists, and their deliberate firing of live rubber-coated metal bullets and poisonous gas canisters towards them, in continuing its crime of deporting the journalists and the media from the Palestinian territories, where Israel commits its crimes, despite the journalists wearing clothes that marked with a sign that they are practicing their profession.
In addition to the excessive use of force in beating, threatening, and insulting and using them as human shields, despite their presence in places relatively far from the demonstrators, and they did not pose any danger or threat to the Israeli soldiers.
Moreover, the occupation persistence in raiding journalists homes and media offices, confiscating their equipment, preventing them from covering and traveling, arresting and detaining them, imposing financial fines on a number of them, and deporting others Under conditions that restrict their freedom of movement, work, and expression.
“The continuing Israeli violations against the Palestinian journalists and media institutions reflect the extent of the their success in conveying the truth and exposing the falsehood of the Israeli narration of what is happening of crimes against the defenseless Palestinian people,” the committee said.
According to the report, the United Nations and the countries of the whole world were called on to exercise their moral and legal role in deterring the occupying state inhuman practices against the Palestinian people and journalists, and to provide them with the necessary protection to fulfill their professional, national, and humanitarian role and the international press institutions were demanded to disclose these practices towards Palestinian journalists on the the widest scale, to pressure on the Israeli occupation to stop these violations, and to preserve freedom of journalistic work.
The report covers the period from 1 January, 2020 to 25 December, 2020, stressing that violations against journalists and media professionals were deliberately committed without considering the principles of distinction and proportionality, ignoring all international, human rights, and humanitarian covenants that guarantee freedom of journalistic work.
More than 476 violations of the right to freedom of the press by the Israeli occupation were documented, including crimes of violating the right to life and personal safety of journalists, and beating, violating, and insulting them. In addition to highlighting the degrading treatment of human dignity and recording 436 violations by fighting the Palestinian content by conspiring social media platforms with the Israeli occupation.
Source : Safa