Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate to UN: ‘Israeli’ Regime Waging War on Media Workers

By Staff, Agencies

The ‘Israeli’ occupation regime has been waging a "wide-scale war" on Palestinian media workers, journalism representatives told UN investigators probing the matter.

"‘Israel’ is targeting Palestinian journalists as part of a systemic policy to stifle the Palestinian voices and to silence us," said Naser Abubaker, president of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate on Thursday. "We as Palestinian journalists are subjected to not just abuse and violations, but a wide-scale war."

Abubaker told a team of UN investigators that almost 50 Palestinian journalists have been killed doing their work since 2000 and "no one was held accountable."

The president of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate pointed to the murder case of Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known Palestinian-American journalist for the Qatar-based and Arabic-language Al Jazeera television news network.

Abu Akleh was wearing a bulletproof vest marked "Press" and a helmet, when she was shot in the head by ‘Israeli’ occupation forces on May 11 while covering a Zionist force’s raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern part of the ‘Israeli’-occupied West Bank.

Her tragic death sent shock waves across the region, drawing global condemnation. The United Nations and the European Union, among others, called for a full investigation into what has been described as a deliberate murder “in cold blood.”

Abubaker noted that Palestinian journalists had been subjected to 7,500 violations since 2013, around 830 a year, asking, "Would the world be silent if all of these crimes had occurred in any place other than Palestine?"

He referred to the case of Abu Akleh as an "extrajudicial killing" and a "war crime," noting that "so far, six months have passed without any accountability."

Abu Akleh's family has appealed for an independent investigation, including petitioning the International Criminal Court to open a probe into the killing.