Journalists in Danger

On 16 August 2002, RSF protested the expulsion of Ahmed Bahaddou, a cameraman with the British news agency Reuters, who was put on a flight to Jordan on 15 August after having been refused entry to Israel and detained overnight at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport.

The Israeli army report on the circumstances of the killing of an Italian photographer earlier this year in the West Bank town of Ramallah was rejected as ‘lacking all balance and credibility’ by the International Federation of Journalists today.

On 27 August 2002, RSF protested the injuring of Reuters photographer Ammar Awad in a shooting by Israeli soldiers in Ramallah during a clash with Palestinian youths on 26 August.

Reporters Without Borders and Damocles Network, an organisation which combats impunity, today released the report of their joint on-site investigation into the fatal bullet injury sustained by Palestinian press photographer Imad Abu Zahra on 11 July 2002 in Jenin, in the Occupied Territories.

On August 11, Gideon Levy, of the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, his photographer, Miki Kratsman, their driver, and a representative from an international human rights organization were traveling by taxi in Tulkarem. As they approached the IDF’s District Coordination Office (DCO) at about 15 kph, they came under fire from a soldier at a lookout post about 150 meters away.

As journalist Jacques-Marie Bourget of French magazine Paris-Match was shot and badly injured in Ramallah on 21 October, Reporters sans frontières (RSF - Reporters Without Borders) has voiced its consternation at the security risks being run by journalists in Gaza and the West Bank.

In a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, IPI strongly condemned the Israeli government’s decision to stop issuing permits for Palestinian journalists to enter Israeli areas or leave the Palestinian areas.