An international media association on Tuesday criticised the Israeli government for maintaining its ban on unrestricted media access to Gaza, calling the move disappointing.<\/p>\n
The government had told the Supreme Court in a submission late Sunday that the ban should remain in place, citing security risks in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n
The submission was in response to a petition filed by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) \u2014 which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and Palestinian territories \u2014 seeking immediate and unrestricted access for foreign journalists to the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Foreign Press Association expresses its profound disappointment with the Israeli government\u2019s latest response to our appeal for full and free access to the Gaza Strip,\u201d the association said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of presenting a plan for allowing journalists into Gaza independently and letting us work alongside our brave Palestinian colleagues, the government has decided once again to lock us out\u201d despite the ceasefire in the territory, it added.<\/p>\n
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by an attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the government has barred foreign journalists from independently entering the devastated territory.<\/p>\n
Instead, Israel has allowed only a limited number of reporters to enter Gaza on a case-by-case basis, embedded with its military inside the blockaded Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n
The FPA filed its petition in 2024, after which the court granted the government several extensions to submit its response.<\/p>\n
Last month, however, the court set January 4 as a final deadline for the government to present a plan for allowing media access to Gaza.<\/p>\n
In its submission, the government maintained that the ban should remain in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is for security reasons, based on the position of the defence establishment, which maintains that a security risk associated with such entry still exists,\u201d the government submission said.<\/p>\n
The government also said that the search for the remains of the last hostage held in Gaza was ongoing, suggesting that allowing journalists in at this stage could hinder the operation.<\/p>\n
The remains of Ran Gvili, whose body was taken to Gaza after he was killed during Hamas\u2019s 2023 attack, have still not been recovered despite the ceasefire.<\/p>\n
The FPA said it planned to submit a \u201crobust response\u201d to the court, and expressed hope the \u201cjudges will put an end to this charade\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe FPA is confident that the court will provide justice in light of the continuous infringement of the fundamental principles of freedom of speech, the public\u2019s right to know and free press,\u201d the association added.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling on the matter, though it is unclear when a decision will be handed down.<\/p>\n
An AFP journalist sits on the board of the FPA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An international media association on Tuesday criticised the Israeli government for maintaining its ban on unrestricted media access…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,399,46,100524,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-223548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-mna","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}