On 3 May each year, humanity celebrates World Press Freedom Day. It arrives during a time when press freedom is needed badly nowadays especially in our country, Palestine.  A professional and free press can contribute to the success of the dialogue between the Palestinian factions, to end the state of division that prevails in the Palestinian arena, in the advancement of Palestinian society, and to the defense of the Palestinian people.

But it is sad to say that the situation of the Palestinian media and media freedom has seriously deteriorated over the past year. The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) monitored 257 violations of media freedoms. Of those, 147 were committed by Israeli occupation forces and settlers, the most serious one being the deliberate killing of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana’. The Palestinian security services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Palestinian gunmen committed 110 violations.

The violations have continued since the beginning of this year, despite the decline in the number of cases, particularly by Palestinians, compared to the same period last year.

But the first month of the current year witnessed serious violations, by the Israeli occupation forces, during the aggression on the Gaza Strip. Four journalists were killed: Basil Faraj, Ihab Wahidi, A’laa Murtaja, and Omar Silawi, and many were injured. Media outlets headquarters were destroyed, and shelled. In general the aggression has led to great casualties among journalists and civilians, and considerable losses to the media outlets estimated to be millions of dollars.

As well, Israeli forces continued attacks on journalists covering the peaceful anti-apartheid wall demonstrations in many villages, especially in Bila’in and Nea’lin, west of Ramallah, wounding several journalists, in addition to those who were subjected to suffocation by tear gas.

The leniency shown by the official international community towards the Israeli violations in this period and during the past decades had led to a sense of impunity in Israel, as if it is above the law; while some countries conditioned their cooperation and assistance to other countries on the respect of human rights, but Israel was mostly not held to the same standard.

The failure to prosecute those responsible for the violations and bring them to justice, whether in Israel or Palestine, has encouraged others to commit new violations.

The violations that were exercised significantly against the Palestinian media, especially from the Palestinian security services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the last two years, led to a very negative impact on the Palestinian media in terms of professionalism, objectivity and impartiality.

On this day dedicated to the freedom of the press, we extend our warm congratulations to all journalists in Palestine and the rest of the globe, and we call for the release of all detained journalists by Israel or the Palestinian National Authority, and the rest of the world, and we wish recovery to the wounded journalists.

MADA demands the international community to exercise serious pressure on Israel to stop attacks on journalists. MADA demands Salam Fayyad’s government, and Ismail Haniyeh’s dismissed government, to allow the Palestinian media to work freely, especially those which were closed or prevented from distribution after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in mid-June 2007, in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.