الفلسطـينية الوطنيـة السلـطة

المـركز اإلعالمـي الحكـومي مكتب رئيس الوزراء

Palestinian National Authority

Government Media Center

Prime Minister’s Office

Government Media Center Condemns Continued Israeli Attacks against

Journalists

18 November 2012

Ramallah - Government Media Center: The Government Media Center condemns the willful,

systematic and continuing Israeli attacks against Palestinian and international journalists working

in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, especially the dawn airstrikes that targeted Al-Shurouq

and Al-Shawa-Husari media buildings in Gaza City, which injured six journalists.

The Center affirms that this targeted attack, through a series of air strikes, against buildings

known to house offices of several Palestinian and international news organizations, is an assault

on free journalism and the journalists' right to do their important job freely and expose the results

of the ongoing Israeli assault against our people in the Gaza Strip. The targeted buildings housed

many offices, including MAAN news agency, Al-Quds TV, Reuters, Al-Arabiya and others.

Furthermore, the Center affirms that these attacks aim at imposing a blackout on the devastating

Israeli aggression against Gaza as well as preventing Palestinian journalists, who are acclaimed

worldwide for their professionalism, from carrying out their duty to tell the story.

The Center further asserts that these strikes reflect Israel's disdain towards international law and

international humanitarian law, which is translated in its acts of killings, aggression, settlement

expansion, detention, and other acts against our people. All these actions aim to deny the

Palestinian people from their right to independence and freedom.

The airstrikes resulted in the injury of six journalists, including Darwish Bulbul, Ibrahim

Lubbad, Hazem Al-Daour, Mohamad Al-Akhras, and Khader Al-Zahar whose leg was

amputated. In this context, the Center affirms the need for the international community to assume

its standing legal and moral responsibilities in a way that ensures an end to the aggression and

holding it accountable for its repeated grave violations of international law and its obligations as

an occupying Power.

In the previous Israeli war on Gaza (2008/2009), Israeli strikes killed four journalists while

Israeli warplanes targeted several media buildings, including the Shawa-Husari building that was

targeted this dawn. It is important to note that since 2009, human rights organizations have

documented over 336 Israeli violations against journalists. Over the past ten years, Israeli

occupation forces killed twenty journalists, including international journalists, in the Occupied

Palestinian Territory.