BRUSSELS, Feb 20 (KUNA) — The targeting of media by the Israeli military during last month’s military attacks in the Gaza Strip was “premeditated and precise” and in violation of international law, International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said in a report published here Friday.
The world’s largest journalists” group called on the United Nations to investigate the attacks and to take action against the Government of Israel.
“There should be no double-talk about this,” says Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary, who led a mission of journalists’ leaders into Gaza on January 22.
“There was reckless intimidation of media on a shocking scale that should not go unpunished. If it does, it leaves journalists and media exposed to the threat of attack in any conflict at any time in the future”.
The mission of journalists’ leaders from eight countries, was sponsored by the IFJ and the Federation of Arab Journalists (FAJ) and was joined by the FAJ General Secretary Makram Mohamed Ahmed.
The Mission report, ‘Justice in the News: A response to Targeting of Media in Gaza’, assesses the violations and threats to media workers covering the Gaza conflict and finds that media were subject to intimidation, direct military assault and were deliberately prevented from working freely during the 22-day Israeli military onsalught.
The report also condemns the blockade of foreign media which had been imposed by the Israeli military on November 5.
But the report also condemns Hamas for its acts of intimidation of media during and after the conflict.
“Threats and intimidation of media continue. There are political attempts to control media by Hamas amidst a continuing atmosphere of lawlessness and threats,” says the report.
The Brussels-based IFJ represents over 600,000 journalists in 123 countries worldwide.