Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns repeated attacks against the media in the occupied West Bank, where a team of reporters had to cut short their reporting in the city of Jenin on 28 May after Israeli soldiers fired a warning shot near them, and where another journalist was badly beaten by Israeli settlers the day before.
“Our car was marked ‘press’, my colleague was carrying a visible camera and the two reporters sitting in the front of the vehicle were wearing vests marked ‘press’,” said Amira Souilem, a journalist working for the French international TV news channel France 24.
For a story on the difficulties encountered by Palestinian journalists, Souilem was following Mohammed Mansour, a reporter for the Palestinian news agency WAFA and contributor to Agence France-Presse (AFP). She, Mansour and three other colleagues were traveling together in a car in Jenin on 28 May when they heard a warning shot and had to stop.
Souilem only heard the shot, but Mansour says he saw the shooter. “There were three Israeli soldiers on a balcony,” he told RSF. “One of them shouted at us to go back. Unfortunately, we’re used to these warning shots.”
Issam al-Rimawi, a journalist reporting for the Turkish news agency Anadolu, was attacked by Israeli settlers the day before in al-Mughayir, a village northeast of Ramallah. The attack took place in full view of Israeli soldiers, who did not react, according to the information obtained by RSF. Al-Rimawi lost consciousness and remains hospitalised. His mobile phone and camera were stolen.
“The Israeli armed forces are relentlessly terrorising journalists who try to cover their activities in the occupied West Bank. In the current context, in which nearly 200 journalists have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza, a sniper shot in the occupied West Bank near Palestinian and foreign reporters constitutes yet another attack on the profession, yet another obstacle to press freedom. We denounce these attacks against the media and call for the urgent protection of journalists in Palestine.”
Reporters constantly hounded in the West Bank
During the same 48-hour period, teargas and stun grenades obstructed the reporting of at least ten other journalists with Palestine TV, Radio Hayat and Fajer TV, as well as freelancers, as they tried to cover Israeli raids in Nablus, Bethlehem and Tulkarem.
In March, RSF already warned of continuing attacks on journalists covering Israeli operations in Jenin and Tulkarem. Also, in September 2024, during a wave of crackdowns targeting the press in the West Bank – including Mohammed Mansour, who was shot in the hand – RSF documented the use of Israeli sniper fire near journalists to force them to retreat.
“I know this job is dangerous, that it can even result in death,” Mansour told RSF. “But my duty to report and to my country is stronger than my fear. You reach a point where you know you have no choice but to overcome it.”
