HRW: Palestinians Endanger Journalists

By Published On: June 13, 2007

Palestinians endanger journalists.jpg
Islamic Jihad fighters used a jeep clearly marked with ‘TV’ and ‘Press’ to attack an Israeli army position/Photo by AP

Human Rights Watch’s report on the internal Gaza Strip fighting among Palestinians, condemns “serious violations of international humanitarian law, in some cases amounting to war crimes,” including the exploitation of journalists’ protected status:

In the June 9 incident, four armed Palestinians drove a white jeep bearing “TV” insignias to a fence on the Gaza-Israel border and fired at Israeli soldiers. The Israelis returned fire, killing one Palestinian. Spokesmen for Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an offshoot of Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack. An Islamic Jihad spokesperson denied that Palestinians had put press markings on the jeep used in the June 9 attack, and accused the Israeli military of doing so after the fact. However, photos taken by the Associated Press as the attack was under way show the letters “TV” written in red on the front of the jeep.

“Using a vehicle with press markings to carry out a military attack is a serious violation of the laws of war, and it also puts journalists at risk,” said Whitson.

Customary international humanitarian law provides that journalists not taking direct part in hostilities in armed conflict zones “shall be considered as civilians.” The deliberate abuse of this protected status in order to breach the confidence of an adversary in an attempt to kill, injure or capture them, would amount to an act of perfidy, a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

We expose the anti-Israel lies so you don't have to. But we can't do it without your help. Join the fight -- Donate now
CAMERA logo
Tell the World – Share Now!

More from SNAPSHOTS

  • In English, Haaretz Whitewashes Temple Mount Killings

    October 6, 2019

    Master Sgt. Kamil Shnaan, left, and Master Sgt. Haiel Sitawe, right, the police officers killed in the terror attack next to the Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem on July 14, 2017. (Israel Police) In an [...]

  • Media Confounds, Calling Israel’s Voting Arab Citizens ‘Palestinian’

    September 24, 2019

    Arab woman voting in Jaffa, 2013 (Photo by Noam Moskovich/The Israel Project (Flickr) The impressive turnout on the part of Arab citizens of Israel in last week's elections -- making the Joint List of Arab [...]

  • Mahmoud Abbas’ Diatribe Threatening Israel Included Bogus Canaanite Claim

    September 10, 2019

    Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent anti-Israel diatribe that aired on PA TV was monitored and translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Excerpt: "I say to [Israel]: Every stone you have built on our land [...]

  • A Skewed NY Times Story on BDS, Then a Skewed Letters Section

    August 7, 2019

    After the New York Times published a skewed story about the anti-Israel BDS campaign, we detailed how the newspaper's reporters "put their fingers on the scales in support of BDS." One of the many examples [...]

  • CNN Calls House’s Unifying Anti-BDS Vote ‘Divisive’

    July 24, 2019

    Yesterday, in an overwhelming vote of bipartisan support, the House of Representatives voted 398 to 17 to adopt a resolution opposing the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) campaign. Yet, CNN's headline casts the unifying vote [...]

  • NY Times Cites Poll, Hides Palestinian Support for Violence

    July 9, 2019

    The New York Times has struggled to accurately describe polls this year. In January, editor Jonathan Weisman misrepresented Pew polling data to describe a nonexistent surge in Israeli support for the United States under President [...]

  • Not a Scoop: 448 Days Later, NY Times Reports Slur by Palestinian Leader

    June 10, 2019

    In January 2016, on the day Israel buried a pregnant woman stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel publicly criticized what he viewed as a double standard in Israelis law [...]

  • CNN’s Zakaria Indulges Palestinian Propagandist Hanan Ashrawi

    June 9, 2019

    Fareed Zakaria’s weekly Cable News Network (CNN) program (grandiosely named “Global Public Square”) June 9 broadcast included a discussion of the current U.S. Middle East peace plan with guests Hanan Ashrawi (Palestinian Authority official) and [...]

  • After Broadcasting Holocaust Denial, AJ+ Feigns Innocence

    May 31, 2019

    After Al Jazeera created and posted a video questioning "the truth of the Holocaust," officials at the Qatari media giant took a page from the New York Times' book, blaming employees who were working "without [...]

  • In Robert Bernstein Obit, AFP Inappropriately References His Judaism

    May 29, 2019

    Robert Bernstein (Courtesy the New Press) In its obituary yesterday for American publisher Robert Bernstein, Agence France Presse inserted an inappropriate reference to the Human Rights Watch founder who later turned on the organization due [...]