AMY GOODMAN:
It’s been another devastating 24 hours in Gaza and southern Lebanon for
journalists covering the 46-day Israeli bombardment. The Beirut-based
TV channel Al Mayadeen has just announced two of its journalists were
killed today in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon. The network
says correspondent Farah Omar and camera operator Rabih Al-Me’mari were
deliberately targeted by an Israeli warplane after reporting on Israel’s
latest bombardment of south Lebanon.
Meanwhile, in northern Gaza, Ayat Khaddura, a 27-year-old digital
content and podcast presenter, has been reportedly killed along with her
family in an Israeli airstrike. This is Ayat, one of her last video
reports.
AYAT KHADDURA:
[translated] This may be the last video for me. Today, the occupation
dropped phosphorus bombs on the Beit Lahia project area and scary sound
bombs and threw evacuation notices in the area. And, of course, almost
the entire area has evacuated. Everyone started running madly in the
streets. No one knows neither where they’re going to or coming from.
We’re separated, of course. I and a few others remain at home, while the
rest have evacuated, and we don’t know where they went. The situation
is very scary. The situation is very terrifying. What is happening is
very difficult. May God have mercy on us.
AMY GOODMAN:
On Sunday, the head of the Gaza Press House was also killed by the
Israeli military. Belal Jadallah was heading to southern Gaza when he
was killed by an Israeli tank shell in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza
City. Belal was known as the “Godfather” of Palestinian journalism. He
helped train generations of reporters and welcomed foreign
correspondents and sponsored them when covering the Gaza Strip.
The Committee to Protect Journalists Monday announced a grim
milestone had been reached with at least 50 journalists and media
workers killed since October 7th. Forty-five of the journalists have
been Palestinian. There have been three Israeli journalists killed, and
there have been at least three Lebanese journalists killed. CPJ reports 11 journalists have been injured, three are reported missing, and 18 have been arrested. According to CPJ,
the past month and a half has been the deadliest period of journalists
covering the conflict since the media group began tracking these deaths
over 30 years ago.
We go now to Philadelphia, where we’re joined by Sherif Mansour, the
Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to
Protect Journalists.
Sherif, welcome back to Democracy Now!, under horrific
circumstances. The U.N. secretary-general says that the number of
civilian deaths is “unparalleled and unprecedented.” Of course,
journalists are civilians. As I woke up this morning, I got one text
after another, first the young woman and her cameraman in southern
Lebanon killed about an hour after she posted a video report. She’s
standing in a field in southern Lebanon, and she’s talking about the
Israeli military killing civilians. She and her cameraman are then hit
and killed. And then, as I’m learning their names, another text comes
in. This young reporter in northern Gaza is killed, even as she says in
her report, “I fear I will die.” Can you talk about this latest news and
then a man you have come to know, who worked with you on a CPJ report, the head of the Gaza journalists’ association, also killed in an airstrike?
SHERIF MANSOUR: Thank you, Amy, for having me.
I remember being on your show a little bit more of a month ago and
saying, for journalists in the region, this is a deadly time. And it was
the deadliest week back then. It became the deadliest month and now the
deadliest six weeks on our record. I was not exaggerating. I was not
speculating.
The killing of Belal Jadallah, who helped us document this deadly
pattern of journalists being killed by Israeli fire over 21 years — just
in May, we made a profile of 20 journalists. The majority, 18, were
Palestinians. And he, Jadallah, his center have helped identify them,
their families, get us their pictures. And on Sunday, he became a victim
of this same deadly pattern when he was killed in his car. Jadallah has
also provided crucial safety equipment for journalists in order to do
their job safely. And he opened the Press House for journalists to use
the electricity and internet when there was no other place.
This deadly pattern has existed before. It’s getting more deadly per
day. We are investigating the three more killing today, adding to 50 as
of yesterday. We’ve never seen anything like this. It’s unprecedented.
And for journalists in Gaza specifically, the exponential risk is
possibly the most dangerous we have seen. Journalists were killed in the
very early stages at the two entry and exit points from Gaza — in the
south, the Rafah crossing; in the north, the Erez crossing. And since
then, they were killed everywhere in between. They were killed in the
south in Rafah City, in Khan Younis, where they were told it’s going to
be safe. They were killed in the middle in the Gaza Strip. And they were
killed in the north in Gaza City. They have no safe haven. They have no
exit.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Sherif,
could you talk, as well, about the arrests of journalists in Gaza and
the Occupied Territories? And also, your organization has criticized, as
well, Israel for its censorship within Israel of the press in Israel.
Could you talk about that, as well?
SHERIF MANSOUR:
Well, we have documented separately from the casualties list, which
includes journalists going missing, injured, the escalation of arrests.
As of yesterday, 18 Palestinian journalists from the West Bank were
arrested. Many of them were put in administrative detention, in military
prosecutions. In addition, dozens of cases of censorship, direct
censorship, cyberattacks, physical assaults, obstruction from coverage
within the West Bank and within Israel.
In Israel, an emergency legislation has now given the government for
the first time the unprecedented power of shutting down international
media organization, including acting on Al Mayadeen — which two
journalists were killed today in Lebanon — banning them in Israel, and
allowing the government also to jail even Israeli journalists for up to a
year under suspicious and these accusations of harming national morale
and harming national security.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Also, here
in the United States, we are getting much coverage on the commercial
media of the war, of the Israeli war in Gaza, but it’s all of U.S.
journalists that are basically based in Israel, and there are no U.S.
journalists that I’ve seen that are actually in Gaza. And those who do
go in only go in with the Israeli army and under the condition that
Israel must review all of their videotape beforehand and approve it
before it can go out. I’m wondering your sense of how the American
people — what kind of story they’re getting as a result of these
conditions?
SHERIF MANSOUR:
Well, these conditions put local Palestinian photojournalists and
freelancers at the most risk. They are the ones on the frontlines. We
have not — we have seen a dwindling number of international media and
international journalists within Gaza over the years because of the
risks involved. And right now the Palestinian journalists are bearing
the brunt of this risk and this heavy toll.
Of course, these casualties, the censorship is also coupled with
communication blackouts for, to date, since the start of the war, that
makes this more often news blackout, not just communication blackout.
And, of course, that denies journalists a voice. It also denies people
in the region and worldwide of essential media coverage, lifesaving
information for 2 million Palestinians who are struggling to find food,
clean water and shelter right now, but millions and hundreds of millions
all over the world who are following this heartbreaking conflict and
try to understand it, including in the U.S.
AMY GOODMAN:
So, as Juan said, Sherif, you have — the Israeli military says they
cannot guarantee the lives of journalists that go into Gaza. In early
November — I’m just thinking back to a few weeks ago — the Palestine
News Agency reported that their journalist Mohammad Abu Hattab was
killed in an Israeli strike on his home in southern Gaza Strip along
with 11 members of his family, including his wife, son and brother. His
colleague, journalist Salman Al-Bashir, burst into tears during a live
broadcast upon learning of Abu Hattab’s killing. As he spoke, Al-Bashir
tore off his helmet and protective vest, labeled “press,” and threw them
to the ground. And then there was a split screen, as he ripped off his
gear, saying, “Why do we bother wearing this if we’re going to be killed
anyway?” They showed the anchor back in the Palestine news studio as
she wept as Al-Bashir tore off his helmet and protective vest. Your
response to this situation and this whole issue of embedded journalism
is the only way the U.S. media can get those reports inside Gaza, where
their news reports are reviewed, and the Gazan journalists on the ground
being killed one after another, dozens of Palestinian journalists
killed?
SHERIF MANSOUR:
Well, the Israeli army cannot escape or evade their responsibility
under international law not to use unwarranted lethal force against
journalists and against media facilities. It would constitute a possible
war crime to do so. We have raised directly with Israeli officials the
need for them to reform the rules of engagement, to respect press
insignia and to ensure there are safeguards, checks when civilians and
journalists are around. We have called for Israeli allies, including the
U.S. government, European allies, to raise directly these issues, and
publicly, with their Israeli counterparts. And we have called for the
U.N. Security Council to include safety of journalists on the agenda in
any diplomatic discussion.
Of course, the Israeli government are obliged under international law
to protect journalists as civilians, but it’s also journalists’ vital
role in time of war providing accurate, timely, independent information
that gives them these protections under international law. And we want
to make sure that the Israeli army, as well, do not continue to push
false narratives and smear campaigns to try and justify the killing of
those journalists.
AMY GOODMAN:
Sherif Mansour, we want to thank you for being with us, Middle East and
North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect
Journalists, speaking to us from Philadelphia.
Coming up, the acclaimed Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha has been detained at an Israeli checkpoint in Gaza, his whereabouts now unknown.
Back in 20 seconds.
