News organisations call on Israel to allow open access to Gaza

“We…request that Israeli authorities end immediately the restrictions on foreign media entering Gaza and grant independent access to international news organizations seeking to access the territory,” the letter said.

The companies and organisations said that Israel’s tight control of who enters Gaza has restricted reporting to those who achieve “rare and escorted trips arranged by the Israeli military”, adding that “this effective ban on foreign reporting has placed an impossible and unreasonable burden on local reporters to document a war through which they are living”.

Middle East Eye, whose reporters are on the ground in Gaza, is a signatory to the letter. Other prominent media companies like ABC; Bloomberg; NBC; NPR; CBS; The Financial Times; The New York Times; and The Washington Post also signed the letter.

The petition comes days after Israel allowed a select number of journalists to enter and film in Rafah, the southern Gaza border city that Israel has hammered with strikes and air raids for months.

The visit was tightly conducted under the scrutiny of Israel’s military, with journalists travelling in Israeli open-air vehicles. One report produced by The Wall Street Journal from the tour includes comments from Israeli military officials, but no Palestinian civilians from Rafah. The Wall Street Journal has not signed the letter.

“We ask that Israel uphold its commitments to press freedom by providing foreign media with immediate, independent access to Gaza, and that Israel abides by its international obligations to protect journalists as civilians,” the signatories added.

Last week, the Gaza government’s media office announced that five Palestinian journalists were killed in one day alone, bringing the total number of killed to 158 since 7 October when the war broke out.

Media analysts and rights groups have slammed the one-sided coverage of the war in the blockaded territory. In April, a leaked New York Times memo was revealed, instructing reporters to avoid using words like “slaughter” and “massacre” when describing Israeli-perpetrated violence against Palestinians.