June 26, 2024
The Israeli army
struck major media institutions in Gaza despite assurances of safety, and
appears to have deliberately targeted cameras that were broadcasting the
military offensive, a new investigation shows.
The Press House in ruins on February 10, 2024, after the departure of the Israeli army. (Mohammed Salem/provided by ARIJ)
According to the
Committee for the Protection of Journalists, 103 journalists and media workers
are among the more than 37,000 Palestinian casualties of Israel’s bombardment
of the Gaza Strip since October 7. Faced with the deadliest war for journalists
in modern history, Forbidden Stories — whose mission is to continue the work of
journalists who are killed on the job — set out to investigate the targeting of
the press in Gaza and the West Bank.
In a unique
collaboration, Forbidden Stories brought together 50 journalists from 13 media
organizations around the world. The consortium analyzed nearly 100 cases of
journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, as well as other cases in which
Israel has allegedly targeted, threatened, or wounded members of the press over
the past eight months. Unable to report freely from inside the Strip,
consortium members remotely contacted over 120 journalists and witnesses to
military activities in Gaza and the West Bank; consulted around 25 ballistics,
weapons, and audio experts, including Earshot; and used satellite images from
Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies.
Today, after
four months of collaborative work, we are together publishing “The Gaza
Project.” Below is one of two articles from the project that +972 is
co-publishing with Forbidden Stories (read the other here). For the full list
of articles comprising “The Gaza Project” and more information about the
collaboration, click here.
It was 2 a.m. on
Oct. 10 when Adel Zaanoun, a journalist with Agence France-Presse (AFP), made a
worried call to his superiors. The AFP team had just received an order from the
Israeli military to evacuate its offices in the Hajji Tower at the heart of Gaza
City, a sign that the building might be bombed.
Only a few hours
earlier, AFP Chairman and CEO Fabrice Fries had shared the address of the
building with the Israeli military spokesman in a letter, in order to avoid any
possible targeting.
“Should we
evacuate or remain in the building?” Zaanoun asked Marc Jourdier, AFP’s
Jerusalem bureau chief, on the other end of the line. “Don’t waste a minute –
evacuate,” Jourdier responded. “I’ll call the army and get back to you as soon
as possible.”
The building was
ultimately spared that day, but an Israeli strike a few hundred meters away
killed three Palestinian journalists who had come to cover the expected attack.
The Israeli military called Marc Jourdier back later that night to say that the
Hajji Tower was now classified as “not to be targeted.” Less than a month
later, Israeli tanks fired on the offices.
This is not the
first time journalists have been ordered to evacuate their offices in Gaza due
to the threat of Israeli bombing. “The Israeli military has a history of
attacks on media structures,” Carlos Martinez de la Serna, program director at
the Committee to Protect Journalists, explained in an interview.
In May 2021, for
instance, three Israeli missiles destroyed the Al-Jalaa Tower in Gaza City,
which housed offices of Al Jazeera and The Associated Press (AP). The Israeli
military cited an imminent threat posed by Hamas’ presence in the building, but
when questioned publicly, provided no evidence to support this claim.
Since October 7,
in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, the Israeli military
has relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip. As a result, media infrastructure
has been destroyed at an unprecedented rate and scale, and news coverage from
within the besieged enclave has been highly constrained.
“When you look
at the conflicts around the world … you would usually have the international
media on the ground,” said Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion
and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. “None of them
have been allowed access [to Gaza since October]. Or [if they are] they’re
embedded within the IDF.”
In the absence
of international newsdesks and reporters, Gazan journalists alone have provided
first-hand accounts of what is happening inside the Strip, while they
simultaneously struggle just to survive the war. Yet in many cases, their
places of work no longer exist. According to the Palestinian Journalists’
Syndicate, around 70 press facilities, including local radio stations, news
agencies, transmission towers, and journalist training institutes, have been
partially or completely destroyed since October 7.
In collaboration
with AFP, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, Le Monde, Paper Trail
Media, and other international outlets, Forbidden Stories investigated several
of these cases. Supported by the analyses of ballistics and audio experts, the
investigation reveals that Israel’s destruction of press infrastructure in Gaza
appears to be part of a broader strategy to stifle information coming out of
the Strip.
A broadcast goes
dark
On Oct. 13,
2023, the Israeli military ordered 1 million people residing in the north of
the Gaza Strip to evacuate southward. Three days after having fled their
offices in the middle of the night in response to the army’s phone call, AFP’s
employees abandoned the Hajji Tower. The team comprised eight Palestinian
reporters, photographers, video journalists, and other staff members who have
worked for years with AFP, one of the few international agencies to have
offices in the Strip.
But before
leaving the building, AFP mounted a camera on a tripod to film from the 10th
floor, powered by solar panels. Although occasionally interrupted by technical
problems, the 24/7 broadcast was one of the last sources of live images of the
Strip. As such, it was monitored constantly by global media.
On Nov. 2 at
12:09 p.m., as the camera was filming the plumes of smoke emanating from
buildings in the north of Gaza, and its microphone picked up the hum of nearby
aircraft, the video shook suddenly and smoke blocked the lens. It had just
captured live footage of a strike only a few meters away — footage that would
be seen around the world.
Exclusive images
shot by AFP, a partner in “The Gaza Project,” illustrate the scale of the
destruction: shards of glass and debris litter the floor of the agency’s
office, computer servers balance precariously on a shelf, and a gaping hole in
a wall reveals a glimpse of the southeastern Gaza Strip.
As with multiple
other media offices, hospitals, and humanitarian sites in the Gaza Strip, the
coordinates of the building had been passed on to the Israeli military on
several occasions. “The location of this office is known to all and [the
Israeli government] has been reminded of it multiple times over the past few
days, precisely to prevent such an attack and to allow us to continue providing
images on the ground,” Fries, the AFP CEO, was quick to say on X (formerly
Twitter).
But questioned
by AFP at the time, the Israeli military denied any strike on the Hajji Tower
itself. “It appears there was an IDF strike near the building to eliminate an
immediate threat,” a spokesperson said in a statement. And when contacted as
part of this investigation, the Israeli military spokesman reiterated: “The
offices of the AFP agency were not the target of the attack, and damage to them
could have been caused by the shock wave or shrapnel.”
Yet despite the
military’s denials, Forbidden Stories and its partners discovered that on Nov.
2, there were at least two direct hits on the building housing the AFP offices
between 11:55 a.m. and 12:09 p.m. local time. Live footage of both strikes
shows the lightning-quick flash on the horizon and an explosion nearly four
seconds later.
Thanks to the
open-source investigative work of our partner Le Monde, supported by Earshot,
an organization that conducts audio investigations in defense of human rights,
we were able to pinpoint the origin of the strikes: a deserted area
approximately 3 kilometers away, with a clean line of fire to the tower.
Further analysis of the speed and features of ammunition concludes that they
were most likely fired by a tank.
Adrian
Wilkinson, a forensic explosives engineer who regularly works for the United
Nations, noted that “it is almost certain that the AFP office was shot at by an
Israeli tank,” and ruled out the possibility of accidental hits. At least five
other experts, including the independent weapons and conflicts researcher known
as War Noir and former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician Trevor
Ball, agreed.
Analysis of two
satellite images shared by Planet Labs on Oct. 31 and Nov. 3 confirms the
presence of tanks in the area at that time. Another satellite image from the
same day belongs to Maxar Technologies, which did not wish to share precise
information that would allow us to locate the Israeli tanks. Maxar declined to
comment by the time of publication.
Are live feeds
targeted?
The analysis of
the live footage led to another discovery. A few minutes before the two strikes
on the AFP offices, another explosion occurred at the neighboring Al-Ghifari
Tower.
On the 16th
floor of this building — one of the tallest in the Gaza Strip — the Palestinian
Media Group’s (PMG) offices offer an unobstructed view of Gaza. Just before 10
a.m. on Nov. 2, several cameras positioned at the office’s north, south, east,
and west windows were sending live images to several international news
services, including Reuters and Al Arabiya, when an explosion sounded.
That morning,
journalist Ismail Abu Hatab was preparing his coffee and downloading the
previous day’s footage, after sleeping in the PMG office. “I grabbed the
camera, and then I didn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything. All I
remember is a yellow line of light,” Hatab said in an interview with the
consortium.
Another
journalist filmed the scene: thick smoke flooded the offices, through which a
camera tripod, still standing in the distance, is vaguely visible. Hatab was
wounded in the leg and quickly transported to Al-Shifa Hospital, which was
still operational at the time.
Israeli tanks
had arrived in the north of Gaza on Oct. 31, and according to PMG CEO Hassan
Madhoun, they specifically targeted the 16th floor of the Al-Ghifari Tower to
prevent the PMG from broadcasting Israel’s destruction of north Gaza. “We
broadcast the image as it is,” Madhoun explained in an interview with the
consortium. “We don’t comment on it. But the image seems to bother the Israeli
military.”
When contacted
about this incident, the IDF Spokesperson replied that the army “is not aware
of a strike in the location and date provided.”
After the Nov. 2
attack, an administrator for the Hajji Tower asked AFP to pause its livestream,
fearing additional strikes. With no one able to return to the offices to
restart the broadcast, it shut down for good on Nov. 12 at 10:31 a.m. — the
last live broadcast of images from Gaza.
“We really need
Israel to come back and explain what their policy is around live feeds in
different locations, and if in any way they are seen as legitimate targets,
because there’s enough circumstantial evidence to make us suspect that is how
they are working,” Phil Chetwynd, AFP’s chief of information, said in an
interview with the consortium.
The strikes on
the exact location of PMG’s cameras and just meters away from the AFP camera in
the Hajji Tower provide circumstantial evidence — if not formal proof — of an
Israeli military strategy. On May 21, the Israeli authorities also seized
equipment belonging to an Israel-based team from AP on the pretext that the
journalists had violated a new media law by providing live images to Al
Jazeera. Shortly before the equipment was seized, the journalists had simply
been filming and broadcasting a general view of northern Gaza from Sderot, a
city in Israel less than a kilometer from the Strip.
“Where there is
strong potential for a war crime being committed, obviously, the livestream
becomes critical evidence,” Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion
and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, added.
“By
intentionally destroying media outlets, the IDF are not only inflicting
unacceptable material damage on news operations,” Reporters Without Borders
said on its website back in 2021, when the Al-Jalaa Tower housing Al Jazeera
and AP was destroyed. “They are also, more broadly, obstructing media coverage
of a conflict that directly affects the civilian population.”
The destruction
of the AFP and PMG offices — which provided journalists with crucial logistical
support and, for many, a second home — represents a significant loss for their
employees. Yahya Hassouna, a journalist with AFP since 2009, described the Hajji
Tower in an interview with the consortium as “the place where all my dreams
were – my future, my life, my office.”
The AFP offices
were “a place where [staff] were able to go without fear” Chetwynd commented,
adding that the attack has had a significant psychological impact on his
colleagues. The feeling among staff, he said, is that “if they are able to hit
our office, our place of safety, we have no other place of safety in the whole
of the Gaza Strip.”
A refuge
decimated
The Press House
in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood was once a sanctuary for journalists: a place
to meet up with colleagues, to eat and rest between outings, and to borrow
protective vests. For Shuruq As’ad, a spokesperson for the Palestinian
Journalists’ Syndicate, “it was really one of the safest places for
journalists” in the Strip before the latest Israeli offensive began.
After Hamas
prevailed over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, and
consolidated its control over Gaza following the civil war that ensued,
journalists in the Strip came to be seen solely in terms of their political
allegiance. Ibrahim Barzak, former correspondent for the AP in Gaza and a
member of the Press House’s board, explained that the project arose out of a
need for a “place or structure for independent journalists, people who are not
affiliated at all.”
When Palestinian
journalist Bilal Jadallah established the Press House in 2013, it was a “huge
breakthrough,” according to Hikmat Yousef, Jadallah’s friend and
editor-in-chief of Sawa News, an independent media outlet housed at the
institution. Jadallah was known as the “sheikh of journalists,” Yousef told the
consortium, for providing them with a refuge from political pressures in Gaza.
Jadallah and the
Press House were known far beyond Gaza. Photos of visiting German, French, and
Danish diplomats published on the institution’s social media accounts testify
to its international recognition. According to its website, the Press House’s
donors and partners include Canada, UNESCO, and the EU, as well as Norway and
Switzerland.
“We finance
activities linked to capacity building for young journalists who have just
graduated from higher education establishments in Gaza … and fund the
procurement of protective equipment for journalists,” Ruben André Johansen,
who oversees the grant awarded by Norway, told the consortium.
Rami Abu Jamous,
acting director of the Press House, explained that “the Norwegians and the
Swiss gave our coordinates to the army” to avoid targeting. But it was to no
avail.
On Oct. 9, the
panic was palpable among dozens of Gazan journalists who had gathered at the
Press House to equip themselves with protective gear. “Jadallah decided to turn
the Press House into a workstation for journalists,” Barzak said. “They could
come and use the generator and have free internet access.”
In total, around
80 flak jackets stamped with the Press House logo and the word “press” were
distributed. “It was like a hive,” Yousef recalled.
Later that day,
a strike destroyed the neighboring building housing Paltel, one of Gaza’s maininternet providers. The Press House was also hit, and the internet connection
was permanently cut off. Journalists there lost contact with the outside world.
Four days later,
on Oct. 13, the Press House journalists — like those at AFP a few streets over
— evacuated on the orders of the Israeli military. Joining a mass wave ofdisplacement from the north, they migrated toward southern Gaza.
With the loss of
this refuge, Press House journalists were increasingly exposed to Israeli
attacks. On Nov. 19, an Israeli airstrike killed Jadallah as he attempted to
rejoin his family in the south of the Gaza Strip by car. Two other employees of
the Press House were killed that month: Ahmed Fatima and Mohammed Al Jaja. Out
of 80 journalists who received flak jackets from the Press House at the start
of the war, 11 have since lost their lives.
We were able to
track down the last person to have slept in the Press House offices. Mohammed
Salem, former financial manager for the institution, promised Jadallah that he
would take care of the place if Jadallah was killed. He took refuge there with
his family for several months and described the anguish of that period in
multiple interviews with the consortium. On Jan. 29, he discovered that Israeli
troops were a mere 100 meters away.
“A tank stood in
the street at 5 a.m., with the barrel pointed toward the Press House, right at
us,” he recounted. “The three days I was trapped [there], I saw death.” In the
morning of the fourth day, Feb. 1, Salem took advantage of a brief moment of calm
and managed to flee the offices with his family.
After 11 days of
occupation, the Israeli military withdrew from the area. Salem returned to the
Press House by bicycle on Feb. 10. Computers, desks, and radio equipment had
all been destroyed. According to him, the building had been intentionally
ravaged by the use of explosives.
“None of the
buildings around the Press House were damaged,” Salem said. “If there had been
an airstrike, everything would have been obliterated.” We were unable to
independently confirm this analysis.
“The Press House
was my pen, my tongue, my eyes, my ears … I am now an amputee,” said Ahmed
Qannan, one of the organization’s founders, who is today unemployed.
Before the war
broke out, an exhibition on the beauty of Gaza City — its roads, parks,
gardens, and coastline as seen through the eyes of Gazan photographers — was
inaugurated in the Press House garden. Nine months later, these photos are
buried under rubble.
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