September 24 (EUROPA PRESS) –
UN Secretary-General’s spokesman Stéphane Dujarric has said Israel is trying to “limit” media coverage of the region following the 45-day closure of the Qatari television network Al Jazeera’s office in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
“I think this is part of a broader picture of limiting media coverage of what is happening in the region, including Gaza, where we see that international journalists are not allowed in unless they come in with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from the north, and frankly, it is a reflection of a trend that we have seen around the world about obstructing the work of journalists,” he said during a press conference.
In this regard, he expressed “extreme concern” about the incident in which a group of Israeli soldiers stormed the Al Jazeera offices in the early hours of Sunday, and recalled that the Israeli authorities did the same with the network’s office in Jerusalem.
Dujarric also said that “the eyes and ears of the media” are necessary to “get a sense of” what is happening in conflict zones, and pointed to the example of the war in Sudan, “where there are almost no journalists and we literally don’t know what is happening except for the horror stories we hear.”
Shortly before, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, said that this fact is “very bad news” that “certainly” has to be condemned.
“Israel has imposed the longest blackout in Gaza in history in a war. Al Jazeera is paying a high price with the number of journalists killed. And this is something that everyone has been condemning. But believe me, I have no ability to change this behaviour,” he said.
The closure of the office was broadcast live by the channel and confirmed by its manager, Walid al Omari, who claimed that “heavily armed and masked” Israeli soldiers entered the building and handed him the order without explaining the reasons for this decision. He later said that Al Jazeera was accused of “inciting terrorism”.
Al Jazeera has denounced this measure as a “latest attempt to restrict its coverage” of the military offensive against the West Bank and Gaza, after the government of Benjamin Netanyahu banned it in May from reporting from Israeli territory, considering its broadcasts to be an attack on the integrity of the State and a propaganda mechanism for the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
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