Some sixty international organisations defending the press are calling on the European Union on Monday to suspend its association agreement with Israel, after almost eleven months of attacks on media freedom and “unprecedented” deaths of journalists in the war with Hamas.
Since the Islamist movement’s attack on Israeli soil on October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has taken a series of measures “to restrict media freedom that has effectively resulted in the establishment of a regime of censorship,” write the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), in this letter, of which AFP has obtained a copy.
They are calling on EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis to suspend the association agreement – which covers trade in particular – and for “targeted sanctions against those responsible” for human rights violations.
Since October 7, more than 100 Palestinian journalists have died in the conflict, as well as two Israelis and three Lebanese, making it “the deadliest period” for the press in decades. Some of the victims may have been “targeted,” the signatory organizations accuse.
The NGOs also recall the de facto ban on foreign journalists accessing the Gaza Strip and the “arbitrary detentions” of information professionals, with at least 49 of them arrested.
“The cumulative effect of these abuses creates the conditions for an information vacuum, and also leaves room for propaganda and disinformation,” the signatories point out.
They are calling for “maintaining freedom” of the media, “protecting the lives of journalists” and “putting an end to impunity” ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on August 29.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Of the 251 people abducted that day, 105 are still in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.
The Israeli military campaign launched in retaliation has left 40,405 dead and 93,468 injured in the Palestinian territory, according to the Hamas government’s health ministry on Sunday.