On Friday, Israeli forces also attacked the offices of Iran’s English-language network Press TV and Arabic-language network Al-Alam in the Gaza Strip.
All of these journalists were only performing their professional duties in a totally legal manner, but they were still targeted by Israel.
The Geneva Conventions attach great importance to the rights of war reporters and aid workers during wartime, but the Zionist regime feels it can attack or arrest journalists in the Gaza Strip with impunity.
Although the Arab world’s media outlets have covered the story, Western media outlets, which claim to be the standard-bearers of freedom of the press, have not covered the issue.
To cover up its war crimes against civilians, the Zionist regime has refused reporters entry into Gaza since the beginning of the war. In addition, some of the reporters who did manage to enter the northern and eastern parts of the Gaza Strip were arrested or killed by Israeli forces.
Israel’s attack on the office of the Russia Today network and murder of an Algerian television cameraman in Gaza are just some of the crimes it has committed during the conflict.
Israel has been taking such measures against foreign reporters in order to censor coverage of the war crimes it is committing in the Gaza Strip.
However, the Zionist regime will not be able to cover up its crimes in Gaza forever and the world will eventually learn the true nature of Israel.
Israel’s unethical treatment of foreign correspondents from international media outlets is a sign of its weakness and inability to crush the Palestinian resistance.
This weakness was also evident during the Zionist regime’s 33-day war against Lebanon, when the Israeli military arrested a number of reporters for publishing photos and broadcasting videos of Israeli casualties.
Now that Israeli forces have arrested the Al-Alam network’s correspondent and attacked the offices of Iranian networks in Gaza, it is the duty of Reporters Without Borders and all other institutions that uphold the rights of journalists to take effective measures to force Israel to free Khedr Shaheen and stop the attacks on the staff of foreign media outlets.
(Jan. 10 Tehran Times Opinion Column, by Hassan Hanizadeh)
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MNA