News / Palestine

Israel conducted 570+ attacks on reporters in 2015: Report

Wednesday, 20 January 2016 10:51 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 20 January 2016 10:52 AM ]

A Palestinian protester takes cover from tear gas smoke during clashes with Israeli forces in the village of Abud between Ramallah and Nablus in the north of the Tel Aviv-occupied West Bank, December 12, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

A new report has cataloged around 574 instances of attacks against reporters by Israeli forces during the course of the last year.

The number was featured in the Annual Report by the Palestine Office of the Islamic Radios and Televisions Union.

According to the report, two of the incidents were fatal, causing the deaths of Palestinian cameramen Ahmed Jahajehe and Ahmed al-Herbavi, the latter of whom died in the Gaza Strip.

As many as 190 cases of the attacks, a number of which were carried out using metal and rubber bullets as well as toxic and pepper gas, led to injuries.

Some of the assaults, the union said, saw Israeli forces using reporters as human shields.

Detentions, the extension of detention periods, and the issuance of subpoenas comprised 85 of the cases, while 81 instances saw the reporters being prevented from covering stories.

Media institutes were either closed or threatened with closure in 21 of the cases.

Most of the attacks, namely 159, were carried out in the month of October last year. The month saw tensions intensifying across the occupied Palestinian territories over Tel Aviv’s restrictions of Palestinian worshipers’ entry into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds (Jerusalem), which it had imposed back in August 2015.

Also contributing to the tensions have been groups of radical Israeli settlers repeatedly forcing their way into the compound, often while accompanied by Israeli military forces.

More than 160 Palestinians, including children and women, have been killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of last October. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has voiced concern over “extrajudicial killing” of Palestinians by Israeli forces.

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