Introduction:

Since the beginning of the violent crisis in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories on September 28, 2000, journalists have featured heavily among the victims. They have repeatedly been targeted, shot, beaten, arrested, threatened and intimidated by Israeli soldiers, police, politicians, settlers and civilians, as well as by Palestinian police, politicians and civilians.

The political climate throughout the Palestinian territories and Israel remains explosive. The violent and bloody clashes, which began 33 months ago, have already left nearly 3000 people dead, around 75% of whom were Palestinian. On an average, three people are killed every day. The number of people wounded in the fighting is estimated at well over 20,000.

The summary of incidents involving press freedom violations in the Appendix displays some chilling patterns. Out of a total of 310 incidents there were ten journalist deaths. Journalists and media workers have been injured by live ammunition, shrapnel or rubber coated bullets, and were harassed and physically assaulted in other ways. 126 violations involved shootings, almost all of them perpetrated by Israeli troops. Many Palestinian broadcasting stations were effectively censored due to shutdown by order of authorities or because of missile or bombing attacks. Journalists have been jailed for several months by the Israelis without even being charged with an offence. All Palestinian journalists were denied Israeli press cards and thus severely obstructed in carrying out their professions.

At least 240 press freedom violations were carried out by Israeli authorities. 17 violations were committed by Israeli settlers and civilians. One was perpetrated jointly by soldiers and settlers. Thus, at least 82.9 per cent of all violations were perpetrated by Israelis. Another 24 violations were carried out by Palestinian authorities, 8 by Palestinian paramilitaries, and 7 by Palestinian civilians. This makes Palestinians responsible for 12.5 per cent of the overall number of abuses of press freedom. The overwhelming majority of victimised journalists are of Palestinian origin. Eight of the journalists who were killed so far were Palestinian, one was Italian, and one was British. Eight were killed by Israelis, one by Palestinian paramilitaries and the tenth killing is disputed. It is unclear whether this journalist was killed by Israelis, Palestinian or as a result of an accident. Of the 4.5 per cent of the incidents whose perpetrators are unknown, it remains very likely that the initiative lay with the Israeli army in most of the incidents.

On December 17, 2001, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) released their first and so far only published report on shootings of journalists by IDF soldiers during the ongoing Intifada (Palestinian uprising). While press freedom groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF), the International Press Institute (IPI) and others welcomed the existence of IDF investigations into the press freedom violations committed by its forces, all press freedom groups also voiced serious misgivings about the report’s scope and conclusions. Only a single soldier was found guilty of shooting a journalist, namely Yola Monakhov, a non-Palestinian Associated Press (AP) reporter, and the soldier was not punished or disciplined in any way, although Monakhov was unarmed in a place where there were no ongoing confrontations at the time. Only the soldier’s commanding officer was reprimanded. The report only found seven cases worth investigating, although CPJ, RSF and IPI had made plenty of documentation available to the IDF for further investigations. RSF had a tally of 45 carefully described shootings up to that point. None of the seven cases investigated by the IDF concerned shootings of Palestinian journalists. Since then, however, at least one investigation has reportedly been launched concerning the killing of a Palestinian journalist by Israeli soldiers.

In an interview published by Reuters on July 6 2001,Yehudith Orbach, head of the journalism and communications department at Bar-Ilan University, said Palestinians and Israelis fully understood the importance of the image. "In war...television is a battlefield," Orbach said to Reuters. "The picture is worth more than 1,000 words... The fact that it is a cliché does not mean that it is any less true". Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi told Reuters Israel knew the importance of the media, and she quoted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as saying that winning the struggle was 80-90 percent dependent on the media’s effectiveness.

A press release by RSF on October 22, 2000, reported that "...in this conflict, both sides realise how crucial film and photos are in the contest for the support of international opinion." CPJ also acknowledges the media’s power in shaping international perception of the current crisis, stating in their special report, "Bloodied and Beleaguered" (October 25, 2000) that "... the two sides are also fighting a media battle in which words and images are weapons of war. For this reason, both sides have abused journalists in order to influence public perceptions of the conflict."

Some members of the press have been caught in the middle of the clashes, where they were harassed, arrested, beaten or shot. Many have been denied freedom of movement and in some cases media facilities have been targeted, such as radio and television stations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Jerusalem - The British government formally protested to Israel after the army officer who opened fire when the film-maker James Miller was shot dead in Gaza two years ago was acquitted of disciplinary charges.

The decision by the head of Israel's Southern Command to clear the officer overturned a recommendation by the military advocate general that he should be severely disciplined. Mr Miller was killed in Rafah in 2003 while walking back to his lodgings displaying a white flag and clearly identifying himself to troops as a journalist.

The officer acquitted yesterday has admitted opening fire and a 79-page report by Brigadier-General Avihai Mandelblit, the advocate general, held that the first lieutenant in the Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion had fired in clear breach of army rules of engagement.

Mr Miller's widow Sophy said the decision "makes a mockery of Israeli claims that they follow due process where IDF soldiers have acted criminally and outside their own rules of engagement".

Mr Miller's family had been bitterly disappointed when they were told at a meeting with General Mandleblit in Tel Aviv last month that the officer would not be prosecuted because of a lack of ballistic evidence proving the bullet which killed Mr Miller came from the officer's weapon. But they - and British officials - were assured that the advocate general was recommending a stiff disciplinary sentence.

Baroness Symons, the Foreign Office minister, has summoned Zvi Heifetz, the Israeli ambassador in London, on Monday to protest at the decision and urge that it be reversed, a message also strongly conveyed in a letter last night by Simon McDonald, the British ambassador in Tel Aviv, in a letter to Shaul Mofaz, Israel's Defence Minister.

Yesterday, Baroness Symons said she was "shocked and saddened" by the decision by the Brigadier-General Guy Tzur, the Southern Command chief of staff. The Israeli army said General Tzur decided that under the conditions then - including "frequent terrorist attacks; thick darkness and earlier that same day the soldiers were fired at by anti-tank missiles" - the shooting was "reasonable". The family's lawyers are seeking reversal of the decision. .

Mr Miller, an award-winning documentary maker who had been working on a film about Palestinian children caught up in the conflict, was shot while walking openly with two colleagues to their apartment.

They were carrying a white flag with a torch shone on it, their helmets were clearly marked "TV" and they called out that they were British journalists as they approached an armoured personnel carrier to ask permission to leave. Israeli claims of heavy fire between Palestinians and Israeli troops at the time were disproved because an Associated Press cameraman filmed the incident.

Mrs Miller said the family believed there had been no "genuine will" to uncover the truth because the site of the shooting had not been secured for forensic investigation. It was bulldozed three days later and Israeli authorities took 11 weeks to impound the guns involved in Mr Miller's death for ballistic examination.

Last week, Israel barred a UNESCO fact-finding mission from entering the country, charging that the Palestinians had ‘politicized’ the mission before it had even arrived. The mission was tasked with looking into conditions of historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, something Israel apparently found to be very threatening.

Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.

Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away. A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance. Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.

The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.

The sad truth is that, on the surface, Israel has succeeded in this to a large extent. Pockets of Jewish settlers now live in the heart of Muslim quarters and aim to take over more and more. Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center. The train, of course, is not meant to service the Palestinian population but rather to connect Jewish neighborhoods and settlements in the city, but the area confiscated from Shufat and Beit Hanina for its construction simply fell into the plan.

What the UNESCO mission would not have seen even if they made it into the Old City is the overall humiliation that the Palestinian population of Jerusalem must endure on a daily basis because of Israel’s military occupation. Trips to the Israeli ministry of interior must be made just to prove that one lives in the city for fear that their residency rights may be revoked; young Palestinian men are stopped randomly by Israeli soldiers to check their ID cards or just to harass them, and settlers are always given the luxury of maximum security whenever they walk the streets. If settlers want to march through the city, the Palestinians are told to close their shops, are barred for hours from reaching their homes if they run along the path of the march and are always the ones blamed if any kind of confrontation between the two sides breaks out.

Jerusalem is being squeezed by these measures more and more each day. But there is always that glimmer of hope, that strength that shines through proving that all is not lost. On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.

The sight of the Palestinian flag waving at the entrance to Damascus Gate was a breath of fresh air. All is not lost and never will be because hope is eternal and determination and strength come from a never-ending spring.

That day at Damascus Gate is what all Palestinians must keep in their minds’ eye in spite of the daily oppression of the occupation. No matter how many missions Israel bars from entering or how many houses it takes over, there will always be those brave souls who, despite the risks, will always raise Palestine’s flag.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

There is no point falling into the pit of countering the claims being made about the death of Mohammed Al Durra, the 12-year old boy from Gaza whose videotaped killing was seen around the world. The boy, crouching in fear behind is equally afraid father as bullets whizzed around them, was killed admittedly by the Israeli army. Later, the army recanted after investigating the tape, saying Durra was killed by Palestinian fire instead. Well now, Israel is changing its story altogether, saying he was not killed at all. In fact, he was probably not even wounded and the French channel that broadcast the footage and brought some pretty bad rap to Israel, had most likely filmed a charade.

The reason why I will not waste my time countering this claim is that even with the great lengths the Israeli government went to to prove that the boy was never killed, it could not provide any irrefutable proof that Mohammed Al Durra – who would be 25 now – is still alive. No pictures, no testimonies, no hospital or morgue officials giving statements to refute his death, have been provided. Only sketchy information about ‘poor quality footage’ and the fact that it seems as though the boy moved his arm after he had slumped over his father following the explosion.

My point is this: indeed, Mohammed Durra’s death was at least one of the catalysts that fueled the second Intifada, and thus, was an important event in the history of the Palestinians. However, more importantly – most importantly to me –is the fact that this is about a boy who died in sheer terror, with his distraught father futilely trying to shelter him from the barrage of bullets coming their way.

Mohammed Al Durra was a boy, with a life, a family and friends. He died a horrible death and now he is being made to die a second one. I did not know Mohammed or his family, but I can only imagine how awful it must be for them to read these claims now and feel the pain of losing their child all over again. If nothing else, this is disrespect for human life of the worst kind.

Some may postulate that the rehashing of the Durra case is a personal jab at the French cameraman who shot the footage, Charles Enderlin. Perhaps. But as a Palestinian who has seen the pain endured by numerous families who receive the horrible news that their sons or daughters have been killed by the Israeli army, my concern is for his family and for his memory. He should be left to rest in peace. If Israel has axes to grind with French journalists or with the international community for holding it accountable for its actions, then so be it. Israel is not lacking in the public relations department.

That being said, there is just one decent thing left to do. Leave Mohammed Al Durra and his memory alone.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

This week Palestinians will commemorate Al Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people when Israel was founded. Every year, Palestinians hang placards pointing to the right of return, they carry keys symbolizing the homes they were forced to leave and could not return to and remember the Palestine that was lost to them 65 years ago.

This year will be no different. Every May 15, Palestinian recall their catastrophe and demand justice. They demand that they are granted the right of return for those who were made refugees virtually overnight and were then relegate to a life they did not choose. But more than anything, they demand recognition of the tragedy that befell them rather than a denial that it ever happened, or worse, that it was of their own making.

It has been 65 years since Israel was established in 1948, which means those who were cast into exile are either very old or have long passed. Those who experienced the Nakba are now few and far between, clinging to those few precious memories of a small garden in front of their house in Jaffa or of the salty smell of the sea in their neighborhood in Haifa. The rest of us are either descendants of these refugees or ordinary Palestinians who feel their cause is our cause because we are one people.

But the Palestinians have made one thing clear. The refugee issue will not die with the last refugee. It is felt nationwide, the loss, the injustice and the fact that those who were forced from their homes have mostly passed, longing for their beloved homes.

We cannot turn back time. What was lost has been altered, destroyed, changed or taken over by Israel’s newcomers. What we can do is hold on to the right to be recognized, for the injustice to be rectified in word and deed and for Palestine to never be lost in our minds or hearts.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.