Foreign journalists should not abandon their Palestinian colleagues in Gaza Freedom of the press

When Israel announced on May 5 its intention to permanently re -occupy Gaza, it did not announce a new stage of military hegemony. The expansion state also indicated the intensification of its campaign of erasure and methodological silence.

This step should issue a warning to every news and press room all over the world. This is not just a regional occupation, but a war on the truth. In that war, Palestinian journalists are among the first to be targeted.

The amazing losses of media workers who were killed in Gaza talks about itself. one Modern report It states that more journalists have been killed in Gaza more than the two world wars, wars in Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia and Vietnam combined. This is the bloody struggle for professionals that have ever recorded.

According to the government media office in Gaza, at least 222 journalists were killed. Institute of Middle East understanding (IMEUHe summarized this unfortunate situation by saying that “Israel is the greatest killer for journalists in modern history.”

This is not just a result of war. This is a strategy. This is the blackout that is imposed through the boundaries of bloodshed and sealed.

Only Sunday, one of the bloodiest days in recent months, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) killing The husband and wife journalists Khaled Abu Saif and Nour Qandil with their young daughter in Deir al -Ilah. They also killed the photographer Aziz Al -Hajar, his wife and children in northern Gaza and the journalist Abdul Rahman Al -Ala in southern Gaza. An Israeli blow was killed on a tent in the “safe area” of Al -Mawassi, Ahmed Al -Manati, his wife, and two young children.

Thursday, two journalists – Hassan Sammour and Ahmed State They were killed in two Israeli attacks. Two days ago, the targeting of an Israeli plane, Hassan Eslay, was drafted in the Nasar Medical Complex, barely in Khan Yunis. Aslai was recovering from the injuries he sustained when IOF bombed a media tent on April 7. In the attack, the colleague of Eslay Hilmi was burned to death.

On April 17, Fatima Hasuna, a prominent photographer, a prominent photographer whose life has become during the genocide, was targeted by a documentary film, at her home with 10 members of her family. One day, I discovered that the film would be shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

On May 7, when more than 100 people were killed in one day, journalists were targeted by Yehya Subeih and Noor El Din Abdo as well.

Yehya, a child, was born in that particular morning. He had left the house to get the supplies for his wife and did not return. His daughter will grow on her birthday on the same day as her father was killed.

Abdo was covering an Israeli massacre in a school in Gaza City when he was killed. Aside from his journalistic work, he also documented the destructive loss of his extended family. On May 6, he sent another name and image of a victim to add it to the list that was his uncle Rami Abdo, the founder of European Human Rights Control, to keep him. A day later, it was added to that.

These are only a few of the many assassinations that Israel implemented in its endeavor to blackout the media in Gaza. There are also many cases of journalists who survived, but the shock has been neglected.

Among them is the relative of Rami Abu North. The Rami family home stood up just a few buildings from the ruins of my husband’s house in Hi Alam in Khan Yunis-or the remainder of what was previously alive alive and vital.

On May 4, a day after distinguishing the day of the global freedom of the press, an Israeli strike was destroyed by Rami’s house, killing his sister Niserin and sending six children to the emergency department of the medical complex in Nasser. Rami was not at home and escaped, but he fell into deep sadness that he could no longer witness.

Just two days ago, journalist Nourhan Al -Muzazine lost her brother, Rizk, a photographer, in an Israeli air strike targeting a community kitchen in which he volunteered. He and five kitchen workers were killed in a moment. In October, the family lost Father Ahmed Khalil the Mahdis when he was killed while delivering water and then another brother Haitham, who was killed the next day.

After the killing of Rizk, Nourhan posted on social media the following: “With a heart that cracks from a lot of loss, I am a mourning for you today, my beloved brother and my country is indispensable … Those who knew him know that it was a homeland of generosity, the haven of sympathy, and a continuous voice of courage and truth.

This is similar to the journalist’s silence – not only the destruction of cameras and journalistic jackets, but the destruction of families, homes and futures. Sadness and shock may control more than intimidation.

All this is the bloodshed that targets journalists in Gaza at a time when Israel is supposed to carry out “limited operations.” We can only imagine what will happen as his Aplide’s army moves to re -occupy the tape.

The world should not turn a blind eye. The survival of Palestinian journalists and freedom to report urgent and global demand.

Foreign journalists cannot keep silent about Israel’s refusal to allow them to report freely from Gaza. IOF’s inclusion and only show what you want the media to see should be rejected publicly.

Without the arrival of the international media, Gaza will remain a closed theater of war, a place where crimes can continue. In Gaza, the absence of cameras will be fatal as the bombs that were exported from the United States.

Now it is the time for journalists, editors and news institutions to demand access – not only as a professional right but also as an ethical sensitivity. Until this arrival is granted, newspapers and cable news networks must routinely remind readers and viewers that journalists have refused to enter them by Israel.

This is not only related to solidarity with Palestinian journalists. It comes to defending the essence of the press: the right to witnesses, to document the stories preferred by those in power.

It is important to take a position now because we see a global trend for the decline in freedom of the press, accelerating due to the silence of Gaza. The number of countries that support the free and vibrant media honestly shrinks. At the same time, the technological promise of social media to be a force for democratic change – which was seen in the Arab Spring – disappeared.

It is time to enter Gaza. The international media must behave – not later, not when the killing stops, not when the permission is granted by Israel – but now. Required is the global demand for access, accountability, and protection of those who dare speak.

This is the moment. We should not miss him.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the editorial island.