Israel continues to bar international journalists from independently entering the Gaza Strip. The legal challenge to the ban has stalled after the Israeli government was granted repeated extensions by the Supreme Court.
In late April, 31 major international news organizations and four leading press freedom groups, including the Foreign Press Association, Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the Union of Journalists in Israel, issued a joint appeal arguing that after more than six months of ceasefire, the government’s security justification for the ban no longer holds.
Israel’s blanket prohibition on foreign media access to Gaza, now stretching more than 2.5 years, is unprecedented in modern conflicts. Here is how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the policy in an interview with The Economist earlier this year.
At least 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war and the international media has been barred from independently entering the strip altogether. In an interview with The Economist, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says the Israel Defence Forces don’t target journalists and that their access is restricted because “it’s a warzone”. Watch the full interview:
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