SOME 60 media and rights organisations yesterday urged the European Union to suspend a cooperation accord with Israel and impose sanctions, accusing it of ‘massacring journalists’ in Gaza.
The organisations urged the EU’s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell and Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis to suspend the partnership agreement, which specifically deals with trade exchanges with Israel, and to impose ‘targeted sanctions on those responsible’ for human rights violations.
The organisations stated in their letter: ‘More than 100 Palestinian journalists and three Lebanese journalists were killed in the ongoing aggression, making it the deadliest period for journalism in decades.’
The organisations pointed to the practical prevention of foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip and the ‘arbitrary detentions’ of media workers, with at least 49 of them detained.
They called for the urgent need to preserve media freedom, protect the lives of journalists, and an end to impunity, as a meeting of European Union foreign ministers approaches on August 29 in Brussels.
Since the start of the comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on October 7th, 2023, 161 journalists have been killed, 186 have been injured, and 51 others have been detained, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.
- The official spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said yesterday that Israeli extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s calls to establish a synagogue inside the al-Aqsa Mosque are very dangerous, stressing that the Palestinian people will not accept any tampering with al-Aqsa, which is a red line that cannot be crossed at all.
Abu Rudeineh added that the Palestinian people rejected and condemned calls to tamper with the al-Aqsa Mosque, which are attempts to drag the region into a religious war that will burn everyone, stressing that the area of al-Haram al-Sharif, which is 144 dunams, belongs to Muslims only.
He called on the international community, especially the US administration, to take immediate action to curb this extremist right-wing government and force it to abide by the legal and historical status quo in Jerusalem.
The official spokesman for the presidency also pointed out that US political, military and financial support is what encourages these extremists to continue the aggression against the Palestinian people, their land and their sanctities.
He stressed that the US bears responsibility for the war of extermination Palestinian people are being subjected to in the Gaza Strip, and the killing, detention and destruction in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, adding that it must force its ally Israel to stop its aggression, attacks and the terrorism of its colonists.
