{"id":185471,"date":"2021-05-24T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T11:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=185471"},"modified":"2024-06-12T21:24:28","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T20:24:28","slug":"israel-destroyed-offices-of-more-than-20-palestinian-media-outlets-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/05\/israel-destroyed-offices-of-more-than-20-palestinian-media-outlets-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Destroyed Offices of More Than 20 Palestinian Media Outlets in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The bombing of global media offices in Gaza caused a stir, while few noted the Palestinian journalists left to work with targets on their backs.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The Al-Jalaa Tower \u2014 which housed the Associated Press, Al-Jazeera, and other media outlets \u2014 is seen collapsing after being targeted by Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on May 15, 2021.
Photo: Momen Faiz\/NurPhoto via AP<\/p><\/div>\n

18 May 2021 –<\/em>In 2008, Momen Faiz Quraiqea was a budding 21-year-old video journalist when an Israeli airstrike blew off his legs. The experience as a victim of what many considered a war crime only hardened his resolve to document the civilian costs of armed conflict.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen the Israelis attacked me, I felt it is my life\u2019s role to spread the truth about the crimes against other civilians and journalists in Gaza,\u201d Quraiqea said. \u201cIsrael seeks to obliterate the Palestinian message, but each injury only makes us ready to expose their crimes. Our narration will never stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite requiring a wheelchair, Quraiqea spent the next decade establishing himself as an internationally recognized photojournalist. His images from the occupied Gaza Strip \u2014 a densely populated strip besieged by Israel\u2019s powerful military \u2014 have appeared across international publications and in exhibitions abroad. He formed a small company called Idea Media and\u00a0got an office space.<\/p>\n

In spite of the challenges and threats he endured reporting in Gaza, Quraiqea says he had \u201cbuilt his dream\u201d \u2014 until last week, when an Israeli airstrike blew up his life once again.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy colleagues called, said the IDF\u201d \u2014 Israel Defense Forces \u2014 \u201cjust warned they were going to bomb the building, so I rushed to the office,\u201d Quraiqea told The Intercept. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t make it in time. It was bombed before I arrived. Totally destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMy colleagues called, said the IDF just warned they were going to bomb the building, so I rushed to the office. But I didn\u2019t make it in time.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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\u201cI just stood in front of the rubble of my company,\u201d said Quraiqea. \u201cI saw my dreams, the long days of working, our archive and equipment, all in rubble. It is all gone now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quraiqea\u2019s agency is just one of more than 20 Gazan media outlets razed<\/a> by Israeli airstrikes in the past week. Much attention has been focused on the airstrikes that destroyed international media organizations\u2019 Gaza offices, but local journalists bear enormous burdens of not only their work for the foreign press, but also to tell the stories of their neighbors and kin. Unlike international colleagues, Gazan journalists cannot leave, for lack of Israeli permission, and, without the protection afforded by global media, take on added risks just by dint of being Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Despite their unique risks \u2014 and the costs they pay \u2014 Gazan journalists continue to do their work, to tell the story of their people. The more they do so, the more the international press relies on them, the larger the targets on their backs become. And yet the attacks that have destroyed so many of their offices and equipment garner less attention than the very international organizations that rely on them taking these extraordinary risks.<\/p>\n

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Gazan photojournalist Momen Faiz Quraiqea sits in front of the remains of his media agency\u2018s office that was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on May 14, 2021.
Photo: Courtesy of Mohammed Quraiqea\/Idea Media<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cEvery outlet that has been leveled to the ground is a loss for journalism and veracity,\u201d Ignacio Miguel Delgado, the Middle East and North Africa representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told The Intercept. \u201cThe relentless bombings of media outlets in the Gaza Strip, along with the ban on the entry of foreign journalists to Gaza, is depriving not only the world of a much-needed coverage, but it also raises the suspicion that Israel is deliberately trying to prevent coverage of the ongoing military operations in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel announced on Tuesday evening that it would be reopening the Erez Crossing to Gaza on Wednesday for international journalists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This week, human rights groups accused<\/a> Israel of disrupting international coverage of the war on Gaza and referred<\/a> Israel to the International Criminal Court, following Saturday\u2019s Israeli airstrikes on a 12-story tower housing<\/a> international media, including Al Jazeera and the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeliberately targeting media outlets constitutes a war crime,\u201d Reporters Without Borders said in a Sunday statement<\/a>. \u201cBy intentionally destroying media outlets, the IDF are not only inflicting unacceptable material damage on news operations. They are also, more broadly, obstructing media coverage of a conflict that directly affects the civilian population.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Since Israel launched<\/u> its latest campaign in Gaza, the Israeli military has prevented foreign press and human rights groups from accessing the Gaza Strip from Israel, despite the mounting numbers of civilian casualties and the magnitude of destruction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Israel restricts or threatens the press, it dehumanizes Palestinians,\u201d Amnesty International\u2019s Sherine Tadros said. \u201cThe story of a \u20184-year-old named Ahmed who loved Pokemon and playing with his older sister\u2019 is much more powerful than a single line in a script \u2018One Dead Child in Gaza\u2019 or the death toll that is so often reported. Israel\u2019s doing this intentionally, lest we forget where the international press is reporting from in lieu of access to Gaza: the Israeli border towns.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen Israel restricts or threatens the press, it dehumanizes Palestinians.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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A week ago, following Israel\u2019s first round of airstrikes on Gaza, the Israeli Government Press Office announced that there would be \u201cno passage for journalists through Erez Crossing until further notice.\u201d The next day, the Press Office hosted a guided tour of Israeli towns near Gaza for foreign reporters \u2014 in coordination with the IDF.<\/p>\n

Erez is the only crossing of the Israel-Gaza barrier open to journalists and its weeklong suspension prevented international news media access to a major Israeli military operation in Gaza for the first time since the 2008-2009 Gaza War.<\/p>\n

On the Gazan side, both the Government Press Office and Ministry of Interior of Gaza, which are controlled by the Hamas political party and militant group, confirmed to The Intercept that Israel alone was preventing access through the Erez Crossing. \u201cUnlike the Israelis,\u201d a spokesperson said, Hamas welcomes foreign press and human rights groups to monitor the escalating crisis.<\/p>\n

All the reporting<\/u> currently coming out of the territory is being done by Gazan journalists, many of whom describe a week of sleepless nights under Israeli bombardment and emotionally exhausting days of documenting civilian carnage. Last Thursday, Gazan journalists Mohammed Alaloul and Mustafa Hassona were hit<\/a> by an Israeli airstrike while driving in a vehicle clearly marked \u201cTV,\u201d leaving Alaloul seriously injured.<\/p>\n

\u201cNowhere in the Gaza Strip are journalists safe,\u201d said CPJ\u2019s Delgado. \u201cGazan journalists are taking life-threatening risks to report the news.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cNowhere in the Gaza Strip are journalists safe. Gazan journalists are taking life-threatening risks to report the news.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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\u201cWhen international access to a war zone is restricted, we rely on journalists inside reporting on the ground,\u201d said Tadros, of Amnesty International. \u201cIn the grand scheme of accountability, they become the primary people that human rights investigators rely on for evidence, so the targeting of them is completely unacceptable \u2014 these are witness to potential war crimes for the international community.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of publication, 12 Israelis have been killed<\/a> by rockets fired by Gazan militants, including two children. In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have killed<\/a> at least 215 people, 61 of whom are children. More than 1,400 Gazans have been<\/a> wounded and upward of 50,000 are<\/a> currently displaced by Israeli airstrikes that have damaged or razed nearly 450 buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the Gazan journalists reporting inside now, it\u2019s an incredible and unfair burden to shoulder,\u201d Tadros said. \u201cBut if they can document what\u2019s going on as precisely as possible, all of these facts matter.\u201d Tadros added, \u201cI hope they matter, and the only thing we can hold onto is, at the very least, that no one can claim that this didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like all Gazan reporters, Quraiqea\u2019s life beyond journalism is a uniquely Palestinian story.<\/p>\n

Israel killed his father and demolished his home in 1987. In the 2014 war, his home was destroyed again and, in 2018, he was injured again while reporting on the popular demonstrations\u00a0at the Israel-Gaza barrier, known as the Great March of Return<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suffered a lot from the Occupation. We witnessed three wars, and this is the fourth. We have lost some of our friends, and lots of colleagues have been injured,\u201d Quraiqea said. \u201cWe really need a real change. We want an international and legal guarantee that prevents the Occupation from attacking us and targeting us, as civilians and journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within hours of Idea Media\u2019s destruction, Quraiqea had \u201cresumed his work of documenting the Occupation\u2019s crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will rebuild what the army destroyed,\u201d he told The Intercept, referring to the Israelis. \u201cAnd we will keep documenting the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original – theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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