Repression of journalists is a weapon to conceal the truth in Jerusalem and Sheikh Jarrah

The Israeli aggression was not limited to activists in the Palestinian street only;

But it also affected dozens of journalists and media staff in Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

The attacks of the Israeli police extended to include audio, video, speech, pen and cameras, which were used by journalists to document scenes of attacks and repression in Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah and the towns of the Palestinian interior.

In addition to Jerusalem and Sheikh Jarrah, 16 attacks on journalists were documented in towns and villages inside the Palestinian territories, as part of their coverage of demonstrations and protests and their documentation of settler gangs' attacks on Palestinian Arabs in Israel, according to the "Arab Center for Media Freedom, Development and Research" (Media).

targeting and intimidation

In this aggressive Israeli environment for the press and the media, journalist Hassan Shaalan was a victim of Israeli police attacks when he was in Sheikh Jarrah, Al-Aqsa Mosque and Bab Al-Amoud. Within 48 hours, he was deliberately attacked 3 times by the police, who targeted him with many colleagues with tear gas and sound bombs. and rubber-coated metal bullets.

Despite the repeated scenes of attacks and harassment and harassment of journalists and the media, Shaalan, accompanied by dozens of journalists from the 48 Palestinians, returned to the besieged Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood with military checkpoints, to demonstrate and denounce the violence of the Israeli police, telling Al Jazeera Net, "There is no silence anymore, the police persisted in targeting Journalists and the media, and prevented them from doing their work, silence on these practices means consent to this situation.”

While voices were raised against the police practices and their suppression of the media field work in Sheikh Jarrah, Shaalan said, "The Magistrate's Court in Jerusalem extended the detention of journalist Zina Al-Halawani and photojournalist Wahbi Makiya, for their documentation and coverage of an attack by the occupation police on citizens of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood."

The same experience experienced by journalist Anas Ghanem, when he was documenting the protests that took place in the city of Umm al-Fahm inside the Palestinian territories.

"As a group of journalists, we were exposed to a scourge of rubber bullets and tear gas canisters, when we were documenting the attacks and abuse by members of the undercover unit against young men who were arrested during the suppression of the struggle," Ghanaim said.

Ghanaim confirmed to Al Jazeera Net that the journalist inside the Palestinian territories, who covers the protest activities inside the Green Line, and reaches Jerusalem and Sheikh Jarrah to document the events, is fulfilling his professional and moral duty towards the issues of the Palestinian people.

He believes that the Israeli police, through these practices and targeting, aim to intimidate and intimidate the journalists' audience and obscure the Palestinian truth and narrative, stressing that the journalistic public will continue its work and march to support the Palestinian cause despite the police's terrorism.

A stand for 48 Palestinian journalists in Sheikh Jarrah to condemn the attacks by the occupation police on journalists (Al-Jazeera)

Attacks and violations

Director of the Media Center, Kholoud Masalha, said that the Israeli police and security forces deliberately attack journalists and obstruct their work with the aim of preventing them from documenting events and imposing media circulation on the events, in order to gain the Israeli narrative legitimacy and credibility before the world.

This shows the adoption of a systematic policy to suppress journalists in parallel with the suppression of protests and attacks on militant activities, and this is what the cameras documented a lot in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Kholoud believes that the Israeli security forces' repression of journalists, the assault on media crews, bringing some of them to trial, restricting their movements, and withdrawing press cards from them, does not only affect the local and international laws that defend the rights of journalists, but also blatantly affects the human right to know the facts and facts. It seems that there are many facts on the ground that Israel is trying to hide and formulate an alternative narrative.

Content and content

The practices of the Israeli security forces were not limited to physical attacks on Palestinian journalists and violations of their rights;

Rather, the Israeli aggression against the digital space and the digital narrative escalated, and also included the assault on content and media content on social networks during the month of May 2021, in addition to the spread of hate speech and incitement against the Palestinians.

A documentary report entitled "Aggression on Palestinian Digital Rights", issued by the "Arab Center for the Development of Social Media in Haifa" (campaign), showed the presence of more than 500 reports of Palestinian digital rights.

The report provided a detail of the violations on the various social media platforms, as 50% of these violations were on the “Instagram” platform, and 35% on the “Facebook” platform, while 11% of all cases were documented on the Twitter, 1% of which is on TikTok.

Police prevent journalists and media crews from reaching homes threatened with eviction in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood (Al-Jazeera)

Censorship and write-off

Regarding the meanings and implications of the expansion of the targeting of Palestinian digital content and content, Nadim Nashef, director of the Campaign Center, says that this indicates an unprecedented increase in the censorship of media companies and social media platforms of Palestinian political discourse.

Nashef explained that since May 6, "many publications, tweets and media content about Sheikh Jarrah and the events in Jerusalem, the protests in the Palestinian interior towns, the settlers' attacks on Palestinians within the Green Line, and the military aggression against Gaza have been deleted."

It is inferred from the data of the documentary report, according to what Nashef confirmed to Al Jazeera Net, that the fight against Palestinian digital content has exceeded the deletion and removal of content, which also included the closure and suspension of Palestinian accounts, while the platforms and networking site companies did not provide a convincing explanation for this.

It is likely that the “cyber” unit of the Israeli Ministry of Justice is behind these violations, which accompanied the Palestinian popular uprising, knowing that over the past years it has submitted tens of thousands of cases to companies without any legal action.

Incitement and hatred

On the other hand, groups of settlers and extremist Israelis worked during May 2021, as Nashef says, “to mobilize and organize themselves through WhatsApp and Telegram groups, and broadcast violent inflammatory rhetoric against Arabs and Palestinians, which Its impact extended on the ground, and led to the martyrdom of Palestinians in Lod and Umm al-Fahm, and hundreds of the 48 Palestinians were subjected to harm, abuse and physical assault.”

He stressed that all social media companies have allowed inflammatory Israeli discourse to remain on the Internet, as they do not effectively monitor hate speech and violent content directed at Palestinians, despite documenting more than 40 cases of this discourse, which contained calls to kill, burn and attack Palestinians and Arabs. directly.