The Foreign Press Association (FPA) has demanded that Israel lift its ban on independent journalistic access to the Gaza Strip, where reporters have been barred from entering since the start of the war in October 2023.
“We call on Israel to uphold the fundamental principles of press freedom and allow unrestricted entry for journalists into Gaza,” said the Jerusalem-based association in a statement marking World Press Freedom Day.
The FPA, which represents over 350 members working for international media across Israel and the Palestinian territories, criticized the ban as a “shameful stain for a country that presents itself as a model of democracy.”
- The organization has filed a complaint with Israel’s Supreme Court to challenge the restriction.
- It praised Palestinian journalists who continue reporting “at great personal risk,” while condemning the Israeli-imposed constraints that “seriously harm independent reporting” and deny the world a full picture of the crisis in Gaza.
Since the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war, only military-embedded journalists have been allowed into Gaza—under strict Israeli military censorship.
The UN Office for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories stated that World Press Freedom Day is marked grimly, as Palestinian journalists continue to face impunity-driven physical attacks.
The UN confirmed that 211 journalists, including 28 women, have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
In response, the Israeli military has claimed that many of the journalists killed were terrorists linked to Hamas or Islamic Jihad, though independent verification remains contested.
