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Gaza media official: Israeli violations against journalists should be exposed

December 2, 2016 at 11:56 am

Palestinian journalists take part in a protest demanding the release of journalists in Israeli jails on 21st June 2016 [Mohammed Asad/Apaimages]

The head of the media office in the Gaza Strip, Salameh Maarouf, has called for Israel’s crimes and aggressions against journalists in the occupied Palestinian territories to be internationalised.

In remarks to Quds Press yesterday, Marouf said the Israeli occupation’s crimes against Palestinian journalists are continuing and escalating, calling for Israeli leaders to be tried before international courts.

According to Maarouf, Israeli forces imprisoned 25 journalists; seven of them received sentences while another seven are being held in administrative detention.

He stressed the need to ensure journalists’ right to work freely and provide protection to them. “The Israeli occupation’s targeting of the Palestinian media comes in the context of a systematic and deliberate policy to blur the truth about Israel’s brutal crimes in the Palestinian territories,” he said.

According to the official, the Israeli forces committed 48 violations against press and media freedoms in the Palestinian territories in November, including the arrest of three journalists in the occupied West Bank.

“The Israeli forces have also committed seven violations against detained journalists while forcing three of them to pay fines to release them. They also threatened to shut down the personal Facebook page of one journalist and prevented four journalists from travel,” he added.