• LAW JOURNALISTS ACCOMPANYING UN SPECIAL ENVOY DENIED ACCESS TO H-2 AREA IN HEBRON
• LAW and the I'lam Center SPECIAL REPORT ON THE ISRAELI MEDIA: ISRAELI MEDIA INCITES AND ENCOURAGES ISRAELI POLITICAL AND MILITARY OFFICIALS TO CONTINUE ITS ACTIONS TOWARDS PALESTINIANS

LAW

JOURNALISTS ACCOMPANYING UN SPECIAL ENVOY DENIED ACCESS TO H-2 AREA IN HEBRON

This morning, during the visit of UN Special Envoy Terje Roed- Larsen, the Israeli army prevented Palestinian journalists from entering the H2 area in Hebron, which is still under direct Israeli control. Palestinian journalists could not access the neighbourhoods of Jabal Jowhar and the area around Usama Bin Munkhez primary school for boys, which the Israeli army converted into a military basis two months ago. Nasser Sheijuhi, the Hebron correspondent and photographer of Associated Press, was reportedly beaten up and pushed to the ground by IDF soldiers. Subsequently, he was arrested and taken to the Kiryat Arba settlement for interrogation. In addition, Palestinian residents who wanted to explain their current situation were not allowed to approach Mr Roed-Larsen.

Workers at Palestinian Telecommunication told LAW that last night settlers from the Abraham Avino settlement, in the middle of Hebron, destroyed telephone lines owned by the company. As a consequence, about 1000 phone lines were disconnected in the Old City, in the Zahada neighbourhood and the municipality area.

For the past two months, between 30-40,000 Palestinians, living in H-2 area of Hebron, have been under curfew. This measure has been taken by the Israeli security forces under the pretext that it is necessary in order to ensure the safety of 400 Israeli settlers living in the middle of Hebron.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers positioned at Salah-a-Din Gate in Rafah fired live ammunition at a group of young Palestinians. Salim Muhammad Hamaida (13) from Rafah was hit in the head and is in critical condition at Shiffa hospital.

In Tal Zara’ab (Rafah) the Israeli army, using heavy ammunition, shot at houses from a distance of 200 meters, damaging the walls of houses of shops.

Moreover, at 6 p.m. this evening, an Israeli military naval vessel fired at 18-year-old Jamil Kamal as he was fishing along the coast near Mwasi Rafah. He was hit with two bullets in the leg.

LAW condemns the curfew imposed on Palestinian residents of Hebron for the sake of a small group of Israeli settlers, who are an illegal presence. Israel established and maintains settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

LAW calls on the Israeli authorities to enable all journalists to work without being subject to restrictions of movement, pressure and harassment

LAW

SPECIAL REPORT ON THE ISRAELI MEIDA: ISRAELI MEDIA INCITES AND ENCOURAGES ISRAELI POLITICAL AND MILITARY OFFICIALS TO CONTINUE ITS ACTIONS TOWARDS PALESTINIANS DECEMBER 6, 2000

Law and the I’lam Center, basing their conclusions on the report written and edited by writer and journalist Mr. Salman Natoor, state that that the Israeli media especially, radio and television encourages the Israeli government and the military to continue its siege on Palestinian civilians.

Mr. Salman’s report included excerpts of radio and television broadcasts, news articles and reports from the last week of October and the beginning of November 2000 that were gathered by a group of Arab-Palestinian media professionals in Israel. The conclusions are as follows:

1. Journalists, military and political reporters and commentators on Arab issues became the spokespeople for the Israeli governmental and military system.

2. The Israeli television broadcast footage mainly from the Israeli point of view and when footage was broadcast from Palestinian television it was described as “Palestinian propaganda.” In contrast, the IDF and Israeli government spokesmen were given leeway to fully comment on events and when they were called upon to explain that over a 150 Palestinians had been killed, they were unable to do so.

3. In interviews with Palestinians, the Israeli interviewers showed no sense of balance between the Palestinian and Israeli sides. In most cases the interviewers were aggressive and patronizing towards the Palestinians interviewees. In the report there are examples of this.

4. In most Israeli media reports, the Palestinian victims remained only numbers, no families or mothers. Palestinian property had no value and the homes of Palestinian citizens turned were described as “ positions of the Tanzim.” Additionally, numerous Israeli reporters and hosts presented Arafat’s as a Nazi. In an interview in the program “Seven and a Half” on channel One on Israeli Television, journalist Uri Dan called the children of the Intifada “ Arafat’s Yogen” comparing them to Hitler’s Yogen. Dan repeated this expression three times without any reaction from the other interviewees.

5. “Arafat is using terror again.” This is the picture that is revealed in the Israeli media. The violence always begins on the Palestinian side. The Israeli violence including settler violence is not described as terror or violence against citizens.

6. The Israeli soldier is represented as the party who gets attacked. Israeli shootings and bombing are justified as retaliation and self-defence. Furthermore, when innocent citizens are killed they are rendered irrelevant by Israeli media. For example, two women were killed during assassination of Hussein Abeiyat from the Tanzim however, their deaths were reported as marginal.

7. At times, media reports on the current situation were not thoroughly investigated. For example, journalists report that the Tanzim use ambulances from which to shoot at soldiers, “ Arafat smuggles ammunitions in his airplane” and Palestinian mothers send their children to confront the soldiers.

8. Most of the reporters and commentators, especially the ones from Israeli television reported what Arafat would “ think, intend and want” and not what he actually said or did. They mention the aims of Arafat and the Palestinian leadership and undeclared intentions as true facts, like for example, the statements that shooting from Christian houses in Bethlehem is intentional in order to get the Israeli military to retaliate and fire on churches in the hope that it would awaken the Christian public to Israel’s actions.

9. The Israeli media never questioned the military’s policy of “containment” even while more than 100 Palestinians had been killed and more than 6,000 were injured in the first month of the events and towns had been bombed and shelled by Israeli helicopters and tanks.

10. The Israeli media also took part in the incitement against the Palestinian officials especially the Arab members of Knesset, whom they blamed for igniting the disturbances in the Arab street. It was a month and a half later when a report was published describing how 13 Palestinian- Israeli citizens were killed.

11. The Israeli media further ignored combined Jewish and Arab actions against the Israeli occupation, while they widely covered demonstrations by settlers.