EditorialIsrael’s targeting of media cannot be justified
- Bombing of building housing news organisations has rightly attracted international condemnation and risks setting a dangerous precedent
Journalists well know the risks of reporting first hand on armed conflict. Simply going about their daily assignments can put them in the line of fire, where combatants cannot fully guarantee their safety.
That is the price they pay for independent reporting of hostilities and collateral damage to innocent civilians.
However, attacks on targets in conflict zones known to house media are not so easily justified. A case in point is Israel’s bombing of a 12-storey building in Gaza City housing America’s Associated Press (AP) and Qatar-based Al-Jazeera.
Occupants were given an hour’s warning by the Israeli military to evacuate the building before it collapsed. The incident is therefore not to be compared with the deaths of more than 200 people, including scores of women and children, in Israeli bombing during the latest conflict with Hamas militants who control Gaza, or the rain of rockets from Gaza that has taken Israeli lives.
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Nonetheless, the bombing of the building has attracted international condemnation, at a time when some of the narrative of the conflict is not running Israel’s way. Groups supporting freedom of the press accused the Israeli military, which claimed the building housed Hamas military intelligence, of trying to censor coverage of its offensive against Hamas militants.