Approximately 60 international organisations defending journalism have called on the EU to pressure Israel to halt its attacks on journalists and to suspend its partnership agreement, following nearly 11 months of attacks on media freedom and an “unprecedented” number of journalist fatalities in its war on the Gaza Strip, according to a report by French newspaper Le Monde.
The newspaper detailed that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a series of actions to restrict media freedom, effectively establishing a censorship regime, as noted by the European Union (EU), the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and other organizations.
In a statement released on Monday, these international bodies urged the EU’s Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borrell and Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis to suspend the trade-related partnership agreement with Israel and to impose targeted sanctions on those responsible for human rights violations.
The organizations highlighted that over 100 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the conflict in Gaza, along with two Israeli journalists and three Lebanese journalists, marking this as the bloodiest period for journalism in decades. They stressed that some of these deaths may have been targeted.
Additionally, the report emphasized the practical ban on foreign journalists entering the Gaza Strip and the arbitrary arrests of media workers, with at least 49 detained, noting that these violations create conditions conducive to an information vacuum and leave room for propaganda and misinformation.
The international organizations have called for the preservation of media freedom and the protection of journalists’ lives, especially as a meeting of EU foreign ministers is set to take place on August 29 in Brussels, aiming to address the impunity in these grave situations.
The death toll in Gaza has surpassed 40,405 as the conflict in the region enters its tenth month.
The Gaza Health Ministry announced on Sunday that 71 people were killed in the past 24 hours alone, bringing the total number of casualties to over 93,468 since the conflict escalated on October 7.
