Reporters Without Borders calls on Israel to open the Gaza Strip to the media news

On Tuesday, Reporters Without Borders called for the Gaza Strip to be opened to journalists who have been denied independent access to the Strip since October 2023 as a result of the devastating two-year war launched by Israel.

Reporters Without Borders reported that it joined the legal petition submitted by the Foreign Press Association, demanding that the borders be opened to independent journalists, and submitted its legal memorandum on October 15, to support the association’s position before the Supreme Court in order to confront this ban.

She also pointed out that preventing international journalists from entering Gaza isolates Palestinian journalists more and more, leaving them alone to face Israeli smear campaigns, in addition to the enormous field risks while covering events in the Gaza Strip.

In the middle of this month, Reporters Without Borders submitted a memorandum containing facts and legal arguments supporting the Foreign Press Association’s position that Israel is violating freedom of the press and the right to obtain information about Gaza.

The organization’s director of advocacy and assistance, Antoine Bernard, said that the Israeli government imposed “a complete blockade on the entry of independent journalists, whether Israeli or foreign, into Gaza for two years.”

He added that more than 210 Palestinian journalists were killed in Gaza, including at least 56 while performing their journalistic work or because of it, and they are subjected to systematic smear campaigns, stressing that the result of this situation is “an unprecedented violation of freedom of the press and the public’s right to independent, reliable and multi-source media.”