“The Deadliest Period” for Journalism… Organizations Demand EU to Pressure Israel

 Approximately sixty international organizations defending journalism today, Monday, asked the European Union to suspend the partnership agreement it signed with Israel due to violations of media freedom and the unprecedented killing of journalists since the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip began over ten months ago, according to Agence France-Presse. The signing organizations, particularly the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and the European Federation of Journalists, stated in a letter received by the agency that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a series of measures since the outbreak of the war with Hamas’ unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, to restrict media freedom, effectively imposing a censorship regime. The organizations asked EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell and Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis to suspend the partnership agreement, which specifically addresses trade exchanges with Israel, and to impose “targeted sanctions on those responsible for human rights violations.” The organizations highlighted that more than one hundred Palestinian journalists were killed in the war, in addition to two Israeli journalists and three Lebanese journalists, making this “the deadliest period” for journalism in decades. They stressed that some of the deceased were “targeted.” The organizations also pointed to the practical ban on foreign journalists entering the Gaza Strip and “arbitrary arrests” of media workers, with at least 49 of them being detained. The organizations emphasized that “the cumulative effect of these violations creates conditions for a media vacuum, also allowing for propaganda and media misinformation.”