Ramallah – September 5th, 2024. The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms “MADA” condemns the escalation of the occupation forces’ attacks against journalists and media freedoms in Palestine and their targeting of many journalists with all forms of attacks, the latest of which was the arrest of journalist ALI DAR ALI at dawn today, Thursday, after storming his home in the town of “Barham” northwest of the city of Ramallah.
The occupation forces and authorities have significantly and noticeably escalated their violations against media freedoms in the West Bank since the aggression began in the northern West Bank. A number of journalists were injured by live ammunition and shrapnel while being pursued while heading to cover the occupation forces’ storming of the town of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin, on September 3rd. They are: WAFA correspondent MOHAMMED MANSOUR, who was injured by an Israeli sniper’s bullet in the left hand, causing a bone rupture, the same agency’s photographer AYMAN AL-NUBANI was also injured by shrapnel in the right hand. Journalist YAZAN HAMAYEL from Al-Fajr TV was injured by shrapnel in the right foot, while Reuters photographer RANEEN SAWAFTA’s car was damaged by gunfire.
Journalist SHATHA HANAYSHA was previously injured by a live ammunition’s shrapnel in her right foot, and the director of the French agency, RONALDO SCHMIDT, was injured by a live ammunition’s l while covering the storming and vandalism in the city of Jenin.
The occupation forces targeted the journalists (HASAN RAJOUB, MOHAMMED RAJOUB, ABDUL RAHIM TAHA, LOUAY OMAR, and NIDAL AL-NATSHEH) with live ammunition near the NSF’s HQ building in the city of Hebron while covering the soldiers’ siege of one of the resistance fighters in the building opposite the building on the first of September.
The occupation soldiers also assaulted the Al Jazeera crew (the satellite channel correspondent, JIVARA AL-BADRI, the photographer, BASHIR SALAMA, the broadcast engineer, ELIAS SALIBA, and the channel’s coordinator in the city of Hebron, MOHAMMED AL-RAJOUB) with obscene language, and forced them to delete the filmed material and leave the place, threatening to shoot them if they did not comply, during the coverage near the Shuhada Street intersection south of the city of Hebron.
In another phenomenon that has become widespread, the occupation soldiers deliberately pursue journalists with bulldozers in the field and attempt to run them over just to prevent them from doing their work, as happened with the correspondent of the “Awdah” channel, JOURNALIST ANAS HUSHIYAH, whom the occupation bulldozers attempted to run over during coverage in the city of Jenin.
The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms “MADA” condemns in the strongest terms all violations committed by the occupation forces throughout Palestine. It believes that they all fall within Israel’s efforts not only to silence the press and prevent the presentation of any other version of what is happening on the ground, but the occupation authorities are also trying to transfer the image of the crimes committed in the Gaza Strip in all their details to the West Bank, through a series of targeting and repression operations carried out against the media and journalists.
Therefore, MADA Center calls on various human rights institutions and the international community to take immediate action and pressure the Israeli occupation authorities to stop all these crimes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, enable journalists and various media outlets to work freely, stop the various Israeli attacks that have not stopped expanding and escalating since the beginning of the war of extermination, and hold the perpetrators of these attacks accountable.
