[ad_1]
Around 60 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) defending the press yesterday called on the European Union to suspend its association agreement with Israel due to attacks on press freedom and the deaths of journalists.
In a joint letter, the NGOs accused the government of Benjamin Netanyahu of “restricting media freedoms, which in practice leads to the establishment of censorship.”
Agence France-Presse (AFP) cited the document, which was signed by organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch and the European Federation of Journalists.
The letter asks EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell and trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis to suspend association agreements specifically covering trade and to “impose direct sanctions on those responsible for human rights violations”.
More than 100 Palestinian journalists, two Israelis and three Lebanese have died since Israel launched its offensive against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in what NGOs say is the “deadliest period” for the press in decades.
The signatory groups claimed that some of the victims may have been direct targets of attacks by Israeli forces.
The NGOs also recall the de facto ban on foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip and the “arbitrary detention” of at least 49 information professionals. “The cumulative effect of these abuses creates conditions of an information vacuum and leaves room for propaganda and disinformation,” the signatories note.
Rights asserted
The letter calls for “upholding media freedom”, “protecting the lives of journalists” and “ending impunity” ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday.
On October 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, firing thousands of rockets and invading armed militias, killing more than 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to AFP statistics, according to official Israeli data.
According to Israeli authorities, about 240 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Of these, nearly 100 hostages were released in late November during a truce in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, while 105 hostages remain in Palestinian territory, 34 of whom are believed to be dead.
In response to the attack, Israel declared war on Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States, bombed several of the group’s infrastructure and imposed a full siege on the entire Gaza Strip, with water, fuel and electricity supplies cut off.
The Israeli military operation has left 40,405 people dead and 93,468 injured, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip reported on Sunday.
[ad_2]
Source link
