The heads of some 30 leading international media outlets are calling in a joint open letter to Israel for free access to the Gaza Strip, which has been closed to foreign journalists since the start of the war against Hamas more than two years ago.
The letter is signed by the heads of the BBC, CNN, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde and the news agencies AP, Reuters and AFP, among others.
“In every conflict, journalists face restrictions on their access to the battlefield. But it is different in Gaza. For over 930 days, Israel has banned journalists from entering the enclave independently,” they wrote in the letter, calling for the restrictions to be lifted “immediately.”
Foreign journalists and their representatives have regularly called for this since the start of the devastating war in Gaza, which began with the October 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Israeli territory.
The Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem (FPA) had appealed to the Israeli judiciary on this issue, without any success for the time being.
Only a few dozen journalists have been allowed to visit the area on an ad hoc basis, escorted by Israeli armed forces and under restrictions that do not allow independent journalistic work.
The Israeli authorities are prioritizing security concerns, even after implementing a fragile ceasefire in October.
Because of this current ban, coverage of the war and its consequences “falls almost entirely on our Palestinian colleagues” who “work in extreme conditions of hunger, displacement, loss of loved ones, constant restrictions and deadly attacks. They cannot bear this burden alone and should be protected,” the signatories also wrote.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), more than 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war.
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