DILI (TOP) – The South East Asia Journalists Unions (SEAJU) stand in solidarity with colleagues in Palestine whose offices have been destroyed in bombings in Gaza over the last week.
Even as we struggle for press freedom and media workers' welfare in our countries and in the region, we cannot, as journalists, ignore the targeted bombings of media outlets that the International Federation of Journalists has called "a shameful attempt by the Israeli military to silence media reporting of its violence in the Gaza strip" and a violation of international law.
Aside from the bombing of the Al-Jalaa building that housed the offices of Al Jazeera and the Associated Press, airstrikes also targeted the Al-Shorouk Tower on May 13 and the Al- Jawhara tower on May 11. More than a dozen media outfits and NGOs held office in those buildings.
SEAJU also views with concern reports of arrests and attacks on journalists covering the escalating violence in the region.
"The impunity which those who deliberately attack journalists enjoy means media workers face an imminent further threat of being targeted," IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger warned in a statement this week.
As journalists who also face attacks and arrest over our reporting, we call for an end to the violence against our colleagues and accountability for these attacks on press freedom and the working press.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was "dismayed" by civilian casualties in Gaza and "deeply disturbed" by Israel's strike on a building containing international media outlets, a spokesman said Saturday in response to reporters' questions.
"The Secretary-General is dismayed by the increasing number of civilian casualties, including the death of ten members of the same family, including children, as a result of an Israeli airstrike last night in the al-Shati camp in Gaza, purportedly aimed at a Hamas leader," his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in the written response to questions on the Israeli air strikes in Gaza.
Guterres was "also deeply disturbed by the destruction by an Israeli airstrike today of a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed the offices of several international media organizations as well as residential apartments," Dujarric continued.
"The Secretary-General reminds all sides that any indiscriminate targeting of civilian and media structures violates international law and must be avoided at all costs," he said.
Palestinian armed groups have fired at least 2,300 rockets at Israel, killing 10 people, including a child and a soldier, and wounding over 560 Israelis. Israeli air defenses have intercepted many rockets.
US Secretary for Israel-Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was to hold talks Sunday with Israeli leaders before meeting Palestinian officials to seek a "sustainable calm," the State Department said.
The UN Security Council was to meet Sunday to discuss the violence.
(Agencies).
