Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory / Middle East & North Africa

June 11, 2001 – A CPJ delegation met with Israeli ambassador to the United States David Ivry to express its deep concern about the cases of 15 journalists wounded by Israeli gunfire while covering unrest in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since last September. CPJ expressed its concern to the ambassador that in some…

New York, May 31, 2001 — CPJ is concerned about the recent detention of two journalists from Newsweek magazine by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. On the early afternoon of May 29, according to international news reports, Newsweek Jerusalem bureau chief Joshua Hammer and photographer Gary Knight were interviewing Palestinian militants in the town…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to protest the wounding of journalist Layla Odeh by IDF gunfire last Friday in the Gaza Strip. At about 1 p.m. on April 20, Odeh, a correspondent for the United Arab Emirates-based Abu Dhabi TV, was shot by Israeli troops while she and two colleagues were on assignment in the town of Rafah. At the time of the shooting, the journalists told CPJ, they were interviewing and filming local residents whose homes had been destroyed by Israeli forces.

New York, March 23, 2001 — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat permitted the West Bank bureau of the Qatar-based satellite news channel Al-Jazeera to reopen on Friday after a three-day closure, according to press reports and CPJ sources at the station. Acting on orders from Arafat’s office, Palestinian National Authority (PNA) security personnel closed the station’s…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wishes to protest the Palestinian National Authority’s recent closure of the Ramallah bureau of the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera reported today that PNA security authorities, acting on orders from Your Excellency’s office, closed the station’s Ramallah bureau yesterday and barred its staff from entering the premises. The move apparently resulted from a current Al-Jazeera promotional trailer that advertised a forthcoming episode in a documentary series about the Lebanese civil war. PNA officials apparently felt that the trailer was insulting to Your Excellency.

ALTHOUGH RIGHTS TO FREE EXPRESSION AND PRESS FREEDOM are enshrined in national constitutions from Algeria to Yemen, governments found many practical ways to restrict these freedoms. State ownership of the media, censorship, legal harassment, intimidation, and imprisonment of journalists were again among the favored tools of repression and control. In Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria,…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to you on the occasion of the formation of your new government to express concern about the safety of journalists working in Israel and the occupied territories.

Click here to view the CASES Click here to read the special report on Palestinian journalists, “Bloodied and Beleaguered.” New York, November 9, 2000 — The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented more than two dozen cases of journalists injured or harassed while covering political violence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip…

Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in ISRAEL New York, October 31, 2000 — A CNN reporter was wounded by gunfire while covering clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip today.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the recent attack on two transmission towers and other technical facilities used by the Voice of Palestine in the West Bank city of Ramallah.