NEW YORK, Nov 10 (APP): Israel’s systematic attack on journalists in northern Gaza is a “deliberate tactic” to prevent the news media from documenting it’s campaign of ethnic cleansing in the besieged territory, the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Saturday
CPJ, the independent media watchdog, said that Israel has adopted a “starve or leave” policy to force Palestinians out of northern Gaza, which has been under relentless Israeli military attacks.
It said that there are almost no professional journalists left in the area “to document what several international institutions have described as an ethnic cleansing campaign.”
The Israeli occupation authorities, CPJ said, “has not allowed international media independent access to Gaza in the 13 months since the war began.”
In October, Israel’s airstrikes killed at least five journalists, according to CPJ Programme Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. He said Israeli forces also began a smear campaign against six Al Jazeera journalists reporting in the north.
“Israel is accused of adopting a ‘starve or leave’ policy to force Palestinians out of northern Gaza. It seems clear that the systematic attacks on the media and campaign to discredit those few journalists who remain is a deliberate tactic to prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing there,” De la Serna added.
Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a leading Muslim advocacy group, supported CJP’s call for the far-right Israeli government to stop its “systematic attack on journalists and media infrastructure” designed to “prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing” in its extermination campaign in northern Gaza.
CAIR said international media must be allowed to show Israel’s genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing, mass destruction, and forced starvation.
Also, Israeli forces have prevented reporters from approaching sites that have been bombed or attacked, further suppressing documentation of alleged crimes, Osama Al Ashi, a freelance documentary producer told CPJ.
According to reports from northern Gaza, Israeli forces have burned schools and attacked hospitals and medical staff. They have killed scores of people and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.