By Hassen Lorgat
Hundreds of Palestinian families in Gaza have lost multiple members to indiscriminate Israeli bombardment, while numerous families have been entirely wiped off the registry.
Readers of my personal facebook page will recall that on the 9th November 2023, I in my capacity as an activist from the Peoples Media Consortium put out a public challenge to a number of human rights / communication rights organisations to speak out at the killings of Journalists by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). At that time the number of deaths stood at 39 journalists, 34 of them Palestinians, who have been killed since the latest conflict erupted on October 7 according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) . In addition, they listed at least 4 are Israelis and one Lebanese amongst the dead. Today the number of Journalists killed by the IDF (as at 3 December 2023) stood at 65 journalists and many activists have seen videos of how journalists from Al Jazeera in particular and others were threatened with death if they did not leave the places where they were reporting from.
I put the statement of the Peoples Media Consortium (https://peoplesmedia.africa/) upfront and centre as an organisation that “wholeheartedly condemn the killings of journalists and invite all those working in media and in the field of communications to do likewise. We call in particular on the following organisations to join us in our struggle to end the senseless killings of journalists and the thousands of non-combatants. UN bodies and medical personnel put the numbers of dead to over 10, 500., most of whom are children in Gaza”. Today the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza, excluding the West Bank and Jerusalem stands at over 15 500 and rising as I write.
The call challenged in particular the following organisations:
South African National Editors Forum
The Freedom of Expression Institute
Campaign For Free Expression
https://freeexpression.org.za/
We further call on the communications workers in particular trade unions and training institutes to join us in this endeavour. We believe organised workers and journalists have an important role to play in ensuring that the news is reported ethically, accurately and not to be swayed by the rule of the powerful.
To read how the mainstream media has behaved, is the first corrective step to take. There is more, but we must start somewhere.
https://therealnews.com/some-of-the-global-medias…
Communication rights give all of us access to other rights. In the case of Gaza, when electricity, and internet is cut off and a people starved and dying of thirst as food and water supplies are denied them – it is a death sentence. It is a death sentence for those at home seeking places to hide, those in hospitals on life support and other medical facilities, like incubators….the denial of communication rights is a death sentence of a whole people. It is collective punishment and it is genocide.
It is a point often ignored is
On 10 November I called into Across the Desk, a feature on radio 702 hosted by Clement Manyathela who was in conversation with Arwa Damon, a former CNN Correspondent and William Bird, the Director of Media Monitoring Africa. The main purpose of the discussion was to explore how “the media has covered this conflict and what kind of language the media should be using at this time”.
https://www.boomplay.com/episode/5691361?srModel=COPYLINK&srList=WEB
I called in and for the first time on the show mentioned the killing of journalists and the silence of groups like SANEF and those mentioned above. Clement and his team checked, and confirmed that there was no statement from the editors forum. This, almost a month from the 7 October, a date often used in mainstream media as the beginning of the “new war” between “Israel and Hamas”. Whilst I do not endorse this date as a marker or a reflection of the fear or apathy of the organisation or its precursor has relied on international solidarity in our fight against apartheid.
Prof Harber did not respond to this challenge to speak out for fellow journalists for reasons that can only be explained as outlined initially. But Harber did eventually speak on what for him is a contentious issue or to use his words: “the Israel-Gaza war is a deeply divisive one”. This was in support of a young Zionist Teeger who was the cricket captain of the under 19 national team. To summarise Harber: Teeger did not celebrate genocide or express desire for revenge. In addition his speech was not hate speech because he did not support the annihilation of a people “by the state of Israel … “ but he only supported the young soldiers who were perpetrating violence, hate, revenge. We must note that the mandatory age to serve is between 18 and 22 years old – so the youth are an integral core of the killing machine.
What Teeger and his advocate Harber did not enter into was the impacts of these high tech war machinery had on the very young Palestinians? A report quoted on a Lancet article arguing that “the ministry (Palestine- Gaza Health Ministry editor) report’s data showed that 11.5 percent of the deaths recorded between 7-26 October were children between ages 0 and 4, 11.5 percent between ages 5 and 9, 10.7 percent between 10-14 and 9.1 percent between 15 and 19.”
One can only conclude that Teegers views are not only unpopular but deadly.
But to end, i want to help popularise the statement of SANEF which eventually made it to the public on 20 November 2023. SANEF reiterated that the role of journalists is “to seek out as honestly as possible the facts and, in this regard, SANEF salutes the work done by our colleagues based in Gaza and by the United Nations and non-governmental workers who have reported on conditions as they have experienced them”. They further called on journalists and editors to be “conscious always of the historical context and to take care of the terminology used in reports. It is not the role of journalists to justify, support or condemn any group or the actions groups undertake. Journalists should merely provide all the facts available and place all events in as full a context as possible”.
It goes some way ….but more must be done by SANEF and all of us.
20 November 2023
This past Saturday the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) held a successful last council of 2023 in Johannesburg where pertinent media freedom and industry related issues were discussed – including the relentless Israeli war in Gaza where many journalists have been killed and injured.
As of November 18, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ’s) preliminary investigations showed at least 42 journalists and media workers were among the more than 13,000 killed in Gaza since the war began on October 7— with over 11,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 deaths in Israel.
SANEF is deeply concerned at the ongoing carnage in Gaza and the fact that CPJ and Reporters Without Borders believe the Israeli military is deliberately targeting journalists who tell the true story of events in Gaza. Several media premises and working spaces have been targeted and destroyed.
SANEF also finds it unacceptable that aid convoys to the devastated region have been severely restricted and the Israeli government has refused entry to Gaza for international journalists and insists that only journalists covering the current actions of its army must be embedded with their military.
The role of journalists is to seek out as honestly as possible the facts and, in this regard, SANEF salutes the work done by our colleagues based in Gaza and by the United Nations and non-governmental workers who have reported on conditions as they have experienced them.
We also call on all journalists and editors, dealing with reports from this region, to be conscious always of the historical context and to take care of the terminology used in reports. It is not the role of journalists to justify, support or condemn any group or the actions groups undertake. Journalists should merely provide all the facts available and place all events in as full a context as possible.
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