By LaHaV HARKOV 07/31/2014 Jerusalem Post
Foreign
correspondents asked to leave enclave for social media posts on Hamas'
utilization of civilian sites to attack Israel.
The international press in Gaza has hardly reported on how Hamas
has operated in this round of fighting, and photos or video of Hamas fighters
from recent weeks are rare.
The reason became apparent this week as several journalists
reported being threatened and even expelled from Gaza for highlighting that the
terrorist organization used civilian sites to attack Israel.
Reporters from Italy and the US corroborated the IDF’s explanation
for explosions near the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and by a playground in the
nearby Shati refugee camp on Tuesday – that it was the result of misfired
rockets by Gazan terrorists.
One altered his report, however and another waited to leave Gaza,
because he feared retribution from Hamas. Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati
tweeted a photo on Tuesday as he went through the Erez crossing into Israel.
Barbati then tweeted the following in Italian and English: “Out of Gaza far from Hamas retaliation: Misfired rocket killed children [yesterday] in Shati.
Witness: militants rushed and cleared debris.”
He followed that tweet with another: “@IDFSpokesperson said truth
in communique released yesterday about Shati camp massacre. It was not Israel
behind it.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Middle East correspondent based in
Egypt, Tamer El-Ghobashy, tweeted a photo of rubble with the explanation: “An
outside wall on the campus of Gaza’s main hospital was hit by a strike. Low
level damage suggest Hamas misfire.”
Soon after, El-Ghobashy deleted the tweet, similar to his Wall
Street Journal colleague Nick Casey, who tweeted a photo of a Hamas official
using Shifa Hospital for media appearances last week and then deleted it.
El-Ghobashy then replaced the tweet with the same photo and the
text: “The outer wall of Gaza City’s main hospital was struck. Unclear what the
origin of the projectile is.”
He wrote that he deleted the first tweet because it was
speculative. However, he presumed that the IDF struck a UN school in Beit Hanun
a week earlier, which the IDF Spokesman’s Office denied – and did not delete
that tweet.
The French newspaper Liberation published an article last week
which detailed how Hamas interrogated French-Palestinian journalist Radjaa Abu
Dagga and threatened to throw him out of Gaza – all at Shifa. The article was
later removed at Abu Dagga’s request.
They interrogated Abu Dagga and insisted that he worked for the
Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, even though he said he worked for French
media and an Algerian radio station. He was instructed to immediately leave
Gaza without his papers.
Pro-Palestinian activists and journalists, including Fadi Arouri
from Al-Ayyam, reported on Wednesday that RT (formerly Russia Today)
correspondent Harry Fear was told to leave Gaza after he tweeted that Hamas
fired rockets into Israel from near his hotel.
In another tweet from last week, Fear called Al-Wafa Hospital “the
hospital with human shields.”
These expulsions only work when Hamas allows journalists to leave
Gaza. Last week, Huffington Post Middle East correspondent Sophia Jones
tweeted: “The Israeli side of the border with Gaza was briefly open today, but
Hamas did not let journalists leave Gaza.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Paul Hirschson said the Israeli
government is aware of the phenomenon but does not know how widespread it is.
He said that, while he does not expect reporters to put themselves
directly in the line of fire, danger “comes with the turf” for conflict
reporters, and “it is inconceivable that there is zero visual footage of Hamas,
as if they don’t exist.”
On the Israeli side, Hirschson said: “The Foreign Ministry in
particular, but the IDF Spokesman as well, have been very open and loud in our
insistence that foreign media should be let into Gaza.
Years ago the army wouldn’t let
them in because it’s dangerous, but now we say ‘they’re adults, they know it’s
dangerous and this is their job.’
It is amazing how Hamas and these terrorist groups will do anything to ensure they always appear the victims. One day the world will wake up and find that democracy is threatened at every corner of the world because they could not believe that people could act outside the moral compass of liberal thinking.
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