By IRNA,
London : Special tribute has been paid at the Royal Television Society (RTS) annual awards to journalists and camera crews who defied the Israeli media blackout during last year’s slaughter of more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza.
Gaza news teams received two standing ovations from an audience of 1,000 media people when honoured with the special Judges’ Award at London’s Hilton Hotel on Wednesday night.
“The award this year goes to a group of people who risked their lives to ensure that the world could witness a war that would otherwise have unfolded largely in secret,” the panel of judges announced.
“When Israel launched its assault on Gaza just over a year ago it went to extraordinary lengths to keep the world’s media out. The Israeli military sealed off Gaza from journalists and camera teams to prevent them seeing and reporting what was going on,” it said.
Most of the media found itself stranded on what has since become known as the “hill of shame” several miles away, effectively, shut out of reporting Israel’s atrocities.
But a statement, read out at the awards, said that inside Gaza, “individuals and small groups of local journalists and cameramen took extraordinary risks to send pictures and eye-witness reports to the outside world showing the daily toll of death and destruction.”
“Some were freelancers, some locally hired producers or stringers working for Reuters and APTN or other broadcasters. Whatever their status they made an irreplaceable contribution to the work of the television agencies and the rest of the world’s media,” it said.
The Royal Television Society is the leading forum in Britain for discussion and debate on all aspects of the television community and reflecting a full range of perspectives and views.