Israel cancels Gaza signal blackout Associated Press – DW – 05/21/2024

Last updated 21:00 CET (Central European Time).

Israel announced this Tuesday (05/21/2024) the repeal of its decision to cut off the live signal over Gaza from the US news agency The Associated Press. Israeli authorities accused the AP of violating the new press law by providing images to the Qatari network Al Jazeera, whose broadcasts have been censored in Israel since May 5. The announcement of the repeal comes after the White House asked to restore the signal.

Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi announced, “I have now ordered the decision to be rescinded and the equipment returned to the AP agency,” adding that the Defense Ministry was “looking into the issue of retransmission (…) in connection with the risk.” Wants to investigate”. For Israeli soldiers operating in the Palestinian territories in the war against Hamas.

The news agency noted that Israeli authorities had confiscated their cameras and broadcast equipment.

The AP said, “The shutdown was not based on the content of the broadcast, but on the Israeli government’s abuse of the country’s new foreign broadcasting law.”

For its part, Israel’s Communications Ministry said the AP regularly took photographs of the Gaza Strip from the balcony of a house in Sderot, on the border with the Palestinian enclave, “even documenting the movements of (Israeli) troops and Also focused on its location”. ,

Israeli military censorship prohibits the publication of images or information that might reveal the location of Israeli troops or military facilities.

Anxiety and anger

Meanwhile, the White House called the AP’s live broadcast from Gaza being cut off “concerning.” “Obviously, it’s concerning and we want to find out what happened,” presidential spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said.

In line with this statement, the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) described the seizure of a press agency’s camera and the cutting of a live broadcast showing a scene from Gaza as “reprehensible censorship”, the defense organization wrote in a post on the social network X. Message.

AP Agency The sanctions are “very troubling,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described at his daily news conference, according to his spokesman Stephane Dujarric, on the spot.

Dujarric said, “Journalists must be able to work freely. The Associated Press and the media must be able to work freely and free from any harassment.”

EE (EFE, AFP)