4 Palestinian female journalists detained in Israel jails

A group of Palestinian journalists, holding photos of Palestinian journalists killed by the Israeli army, organise a demonstration ahead of the “World Press Freedom Day” on May 3 in Ramallah, West Bank on May 02, 2024 [Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency]

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At least four Palestinian women journalists are among the journalists detained in Israeli jails, a Palestinian prisoners’ group said on Friday, Anadolu Agency reports.

“Four female journalists are under arrest (in Israeli jails), including a nursing mother,” the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a statement marking the World Press Freedom Day.

The statement identified them as Ikhlas Sawalha, Rola Hasanein, Bushra Al-Tawil and Asmaa Heresh, noting that three of them – Sawalha, Al-Tawil and Heresh – are under administrative detention without a trial or charge.

The Palestinian rights group also said that a fifth journalist, Somaya Jawabreh, is under house arrest after her release from Israeli prison in November last year.

Earlier on Friday, the group said in a joint statement, along with other rights groups, that Israel has been detaining 53 Palestinian journalists in its prisons and detention facilities, including 43 arrested after 7 October.

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READ: ‘World powers allowing Israel to keep killing Gaza journalists to hide war crimes’

 

Funerals are held for Palestinians journalists killed by Israeli occupation forces in the besieged Gaza Strip [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

 

World powers are intentionally looking the other way as Israel continues its deadly attacks on journalists in Gaza, while also not letting in others from outside, to cover up its crimes, according to Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, co-founder of British group, Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), Anadolu Agency reports.

“It’s very clear that they are trying to prevent the news about … what they are guilty of in Gaza reaching the rest of the world, so they have banned outside journalists from going into Gaza to see what’s happening,” she told Anadolu in an interview in London.

“So, the fact that there are courageous, heroic journalists working there is obviously a serious problem for them, and they are trying to silence these people.”

The latest journalist to fall victim to an Israeli attack was Salem Abu Toyor, a reporter for Al-Quds Today television station, who was killed along with his son in a 30 April airstrike on their home in Gaza’s Nuseirat Refugee Camp.

WATCH: Gaza residents express gratitude and solidarity with US student protesters

The number of journalists killed in Gaza since last October is now at 142, according to Palestinian authorities. International watchdogs, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, have already said that Israel’s war on Gaza is the deadliest in modern history for journalists.

Wimborne-Idrissi, who has been campaigning for Palestine for many years, termed it a “heinous” policy that is yet another “war crime” being perpetrated by Israel.

“It’s horrendous that this is allowed to go on. The major powers, the US and European countries, allow this to go on, even while their people are marching on the streets to demand that it stop,” she said.

Israel has ‘completely ignored’ ICJ

Israel is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its assault on Gaza, which has now killed nearly 34,600 Palestinians, the vast majority being women and children, and wounded over 77,800.

It has displaced millions more, around 85 per cent of the population, leaving them facing famine and acute shortages of medical aid and other essentials.

Israeli attacks have also laid waste to large swathes of the besieged enclave, devastating everything, from housing to medical facilities, educational institutes and all sorts of civic infrastructure.

Wimborne-Idrissi called out Western nations for their failure to hold Israel accountable or make it comply with international humanitarian law.

She hailed South Africa for taking Israel to the ICJ, praising its legal team for putting up an “amazingly well-researched and thoroughly well-argued case.”

“We should all be thanking them for it,” she said.

The strength of the case was the reason that, despite the expectation that governments would pressure the ICJ judges, the Court gave an interim decision in favour of South Africa and ordered Israel to take provisional measures, she said.

“The problem is, of course, that Israel has completely ignored it,” said the JVL official.

“Those countries which are signatories to the Genocide Convention, who have an obligation to make sure the judgment of the Court is carried out, have not done anything to make Israel comply.”

She said these nations have been putting their hands up, claiming that Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu “doesn’t seem to be listening to our concerns”.

“They can act. They can take action right now. They can institute sanctions against the State of Israel, which is committing war crimes. They choose not to do so,” she asserted.

“It’s a political calculation on their part, which history will condemn them for, I have no doubt about that.”​​​​​​​