A petition signed by nearly 100 French journalists calls for the Gaza Strip to be opened up to allow them to inform the public on the events there.
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A petition signed by nearly 100 French journalists demanding access to Gaza and the protection of journalists covering the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants comes from a simple assessment: a war needs to have field reporting from both sides.
“We were able to record the stories of the victims of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, we need to work in security to report on what is happening in Gaza […] let us enter the Gaza Strip so that we can do our job. We understand the risks,” reads the missive.
Since the blockade Israel imposed on Gaza 16 years ago, journalists cannot enter the Palestinian territory without authorisation from Israeli authorities. With the outbreak of the latest war, “Israeli authorities are not letting us (journalists) enter the Gaza Strip […] the other possibility would be to enter through Rafah but we cannot enter because the crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt is closed,” journalist Céline Martelet, who signed the petition, said to FRANCE 24.
The international media has continued reporting on the situation in Gaza despite the restrictions, but there is a glaring disparity between the quantity and quality of information coming out of Israel and Gaza.
“We have talked a lot about what happened on October 7, which is necessary because of the revisionism of some people saying what happened didn’t happen. But there is an imbalance because there are only a few journalists in Gaza and [some] have been killed”, said Mélina Huet, a FRANCE 24 reporter who just came back from Israel and signed the petition.
With Gaza under siege and missile strikes killing Palestinian journalists, their foreign colleagues try to report on the…
Source : france24
