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Israel Calling Journalists Terrorists Decried as 'An Attempt to Preemptively Justify Their Murder'
"Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence," said the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Oct 23, 2024
Seasoned observers of Israeli disinformation campaigns on Wednesday responded with pointed skepticism to a claim by the country's military that half a dozen Al Jazeera journalists are linked to militant Palestinian resistance groups.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed Wednesday that intelligence recovered during the ongoing invasion of Gaza revealed that Al Jazeera journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Alaa Salama, Hossam Shabat, Ashraf Saraj, Ismail Abu Amr, and Talal Aruki are affiliated with either Hamas—which governs Palestine's coastal enclave and led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel—or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
This, the IDF said, "unequivocally proves that they function as military terrorist operatives of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip."
However, critics accused Israel of targeting the six journalists for exposing Israeli war crimes to the world.
"There's a very clear reason why Israel has been killing journalists," asserted U.S. investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill:
As the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Public Accuracy noted:
Shabat... wrote Tuesday: "I'm a reporter on the ground in North Gaza, and I'm here to tell you that no aid has entered the besieged area for the past 21 days. The Israeli and American governments are spreading inaccurate information.
Al-Sharif yesterday posted a video of children killed, one with their head literally blown off. He just posted a video of civil defense crews working five hours to rescue a child.
University of Edinburgh professor Nicola Perugini noted that some of the six journalists "are covering the new phase of the genocide, the complete depopulation of northern Gaza."
"The aim is to transform the last witnesses into killable targets," he said.
Al Jazeera —which is banned from operating in Israel but is the only major international media network on the ground in Gaza, as Israeli authorities prohibit foreign reporters from entering the besieged strip—denies the IDF's claim.
Others noted that Israeli forces have killed numerous Al Jazeera workers as part of a war on journalists in which at least 128 media professionals have been killed, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The United Nations says more than 170 media workers have been killed by Israeli forces.
"This is an assassination threat and an attempt to preemptively justify their murder," Scahill said of Israel's claim against the six Al Jazeera journalists.
"Anyone claiming Israel has offered 'irrefutable' proof to back up these allegations is either ignorant of the systematic campaign of lies, propaganda, and fake news unleashed by Israel or is trying to aid and abet the murder of more journalists," he added. "That is what is irrefutable."
CPJ said on social media that it "is aware of accusations made by the Israel Defense Forces against several journalists in Gaza accusing them of being members of militant groups."
"Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence," the group noted. "After killing Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail Al Ghoul in July, the IDF previously produced a similar document, which contained contradictory information, showing that Al Ghoul, born in 1997, received a Hamas military ranking in 2007—when he would have been 10 years old."
The Paris-based international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has filed multiple complaints at the International Criminal Court alleging "war crimes against journalists in Gaza," including the apparently intentional targeting of media professionals.
In one filing, RSF said it "has reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians" and accused Israel of "an eradication of the Palestinian media."
"You don't shut down the media unless you have something to hide."
In June, the Gaza Project—an investigative journalism initiative led by the Paris-based nonprofit Forbidden Stories—"analyzed nearly 100 cases of journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, as well as other cases in which members of the press have been allegedly targeted, threatened, or injured."
The project found "a chilling pattern" of journalists who "may have been targeted even though they were identifiable as press."
In one case that enraged journalists and others around the world, at least one IDF member sent 19-year-old Palestinian reporter Hassan Hamad text messages threatening him and his family if he did not stop documenting Israel's assault on Gaza, which has left more than 152,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, millions more starved or sickened, and much of the territory in ruins.
Hamad refused. Earlier this month, Israeli forces assassinated him in a drone strike on his home in the Jabalia refugee camp.
U.S. citizens working in media have also been harmed by Israeli forces while on the job in Gaza and Lebanon, where IDF bombardment and invasion have killed and wounded thousands of people.
On Tuesday, a dozen members of U.S. Congress led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) urged the Biden administration—which supports Israeli with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—to investigate Israeli attacks on journalists including Dylan Collins, who was with a group of six other reporters covering cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon when an IDF tank opened fire on their position despite their clear identification as press. Collins and five others were injured, and Lebanese Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed.
Israel's targeting of American journalists predates the current war and includes the 2022 killing of renowned Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh. Multiple probes have concluded Abu Akleh was deliberately targeted by an IDF sniper as she was covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the illegally occupied West Bank.
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'Heinous Crime': Israeli Strikes on Gaza Kill at Least 13 Palestinians, Including Children
While one United Nations official slammed the Israeli bombings as "unacceptable," an Israel Defense Forces colonel called the deaths of four children "irrelevant."
May 09, 2023
Human rights defenders on Tuesday condemned an intense Israeli aerial bombardment of densely populated areas of Gaza that killed at least 13 Palestinians—including at least 10 civilians and three leaders of a militant resistance group—while wounding more than 20 others.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF)—which is calling the airstrikes Operation Shield and Arrow—said it "targeted three senior Islamic Jihad commanders responsible for launching rockets toward Israel over the last month and planning further terror attacks," as well as "weapons manufacturing sites and military compounds."
"The strikes were carried out with pinpoint accuracy based on real-time intelligence while making efforts to avoid harming uninvolved civilians as much as possible," the IDF added.
However, the Palestinian Ministry of Health-Gaza said that at least 10 civilians, including six women and four children, died in the bombings, which killed Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders Jihad Shaker al-Ghannam, Khalil al-Bahtini, and Tariq Mohammed Ezzedine.
\u201cAftermath of today\u2019s attack by the #Israeli military targeting #Gaza. 13 people have been killed and many others wounded including several women and children, along with several resistance commanders. #Gaza_under_attack\u201d— Ramzy Baroud (@Ramzy Baroud) 1683614492
Standing in front of a bombed six-story apartment building in Gaza City, Adeeb al-Rabai, a 60-year attorney, told Al Jazeera that "I thought I was dreaming until I realized that the bombing was on my building."
"It's a civilian residential building," Rabai stressed. "Israeli missiles hit the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, which were partially destroyed. Civilians live in those apartments, women and children. The Israeli occupation meant to destroy and kill those in the building."
Victims of Tuesday's attack include Dr. Jamal Khaswan, a Russian national who was the director of the El-Wafa Charity Hospital in Gaza City, his wife Mervat Khaswan, and their 21-year-old son Yousef Khaswan. Dania Adass, who was 21, and her 17-year-old sister Iman Alaa Adass died when the IDF bombed their home in the Tofah neighborhood east of Gaza City.
\u201cGaza| \u201cWhere is my Dad?\u201d\n\nThe moment a child, Miral Khawsan arrives at Al-Shifa Hospital, waiting for her father that was injured and evacuated to hospital following an Israeli airstrike\n\nSad to announce that it turned out that both her mother and father was killed.\u201d— Younis | \u064a\u0648\u0646\u0633 (@Younis | \u064a\u0648\u0646\u0633) 1683600556
"Dania was getting ready for her wedding in a few days, and Iman was sad because her sister was about to leave the family home," cousin Shaaban Adass told Al Jazeera as the slain woman's fiancée wept near her body. "What an enormous heartbreak and shock."
"What happened is a heinous crime by the Israeli occupation, which claimed the lives of innocent people who were supposed to be safe in their homes," Adass added.
Tor Wennesland, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said in a statement that he is "deeply alarmed" by Israel's "unacceptable" bombings.
\u201cThis video shows footages of Palestinian child Mayar Ezzdin, who was murdered with her father and brother in an Israeli airstrike on their home in Gaza last night.\u201d— PALESTINE ONLINE \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8 (@PALESTINE ONLINE \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8) 1683651198
Maurice Hirsch, an IDF reserve colonel, responded by accusing Wennesland of "moral bankruptcy" for not condemning last week's barrage of rockets fired by Gaza militants into Israel, an attack that wounded as many as a dozen civilians.
The rocket attack followed the death of Khader Adnan—a Palestinian activist imprisoned in Israel without charge or trial—during an 87-day hunger strike.
"Considering the military advantage gained by eliminating these senior terrorists," Hirsh tweeted, "it is irrelevant to ask how many children were incidentally killed."
\u201cIsraeli strikes kill 12 Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip overnight, brags about targeting members of the Islamic Jehad \u2013 who were killed with their family members. These are Ali and Mayar IzzAlDeen, two of the children killed in the raids.\u201d— Rania Zabaneh (@Rania Zabaneh) 1683603796
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party said Tuesday that they would end their short-lived boycott of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government due to what they said was an insufficient response to last week's rocket attack.
"If there's one thing Israeli leaders can agree on, it's killing Palestinians," tweeted Yumna Patel, Palestine news director at Mondoweiss. "Nothing bands them together quite like bombing the hell out of Gaza."
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