Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory / Middle East & North Africa

New York, July 6, 2023 — The Israel Defense Forces must investigate the July 3 attack that destroyed an Al-Araby TV crew’s equipment, make public its findings, and take immediate measures to ensure journalists’ safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. On July 3, Al-Araby TV reporter Ameed Shehade and camera operator Rabie Al-Munir…

New York, June 8, 2023—Israel Defense Force officials must investigate the Wednesday, June 7, shootings of photojournalists Momen Somrain and Rabie Al-Munir with rubber bullets and make public its findings, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.  IDF soldiers shot the journalists with rubber-coated bullets while they reported on an IDF demolition of a terrorism…

On May 9, 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists published “Deadly Pattern,” a report on the Israeli military’s killing of 20 journalists in 22 years — and how no one has been held accountable for those deaths. Some of the global coverage of the CPJ report:

Palestinians make up 90% of the journalists and media workers killed by the IDF in CPJ’s database. (The other 10% were foreign correspondents; no Israelis were killed.) Those figures are partly a reflection of broader trends in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; over the last 15 years, 21 times more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed, according…

Israel’s procedure for examining military killings of civilians such as journalists is a black box. There is no policy document describing the process in detail and the results of any probe are confidential. If an incident taking place during active combat raises the suspicion of a violation of international law, the office of the army…

The May 11, 2022, killing of Al-Jazeera Arabic correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh is part of a deadly, decades-long pattern. Over 22 years, CPJ has documented at least 20 journalist killings by members of the Israel Defense Forces. Despite numerous IDF probes, no one has ever been charged or held responsible for these deaths. The impunity…

As the Jerusalem correspondent for the Guardian newspaper, Bethan McKernan has spent much of the last year covering the escalating cycle of violence in in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It feels, she says, like “a slow-motion opening salvo of a new war.”    According to the U.S.-based non-profit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project…

New York, March 20, 2023 – Israeli authorities should immediately reverse their order to shut down the Israeli operations of the Voice of Palestine radio station and should cease harassing members of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. On Monday, March 20, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir ordered Voice of Palestine, the…

New York, November 15, 2022—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Tuesday welcomed reports that the FBI plans to investigate the May 11 killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as an important first step toward potentially achieving justice in her case. The U.S. Department of Justice notified the Israeli Ministry of Justice of the…

How zero-click surveillance threatens reporters, sources, and global press freedom By Fred Guterl Published October 13, 2022 Aida Alami has always been wary of surveillance. As a journalist from Morocco, a state with a track record of intercepting phone calls and messages of political rivals, activists, and journalists, she habitually took precautions to protect her…