Reuters absent from media appeal for Israel to let reporters into Gaza

The organisations included Reuters news agency rivals Bloomberg, Associated Press and AFP as well as the BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Sky News, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Reuters did not respond to a request for comment on why it did not join the letter signed by news organisations and press freedom bodies in 27 countries.  

The letter, coordinated by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said that international journalists had not been allowed access to Gaza since the war there began on October 7 except for rare and escorted trips arranged by the Israeli army.

The war began when Hamas launched an attack into Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to Palestinian medical authorities.

The letter said the lack of access for international media had increased the pressure on Palestinian journalists and encouraged misinformation and disinformation. “This effective ban on foreign reporting has placed an impossible and unreasonable burden on local reporters to document a war through which they are living,” it said.

“More than 100 journalists have been killed since the start of the war and those who remain are working in conditions of extreme deprivation. The result is that information from Gaza is becoming harder and harder to obtain and that the reporting which does get through is subject to repeated questions over its veracity.” 

The letter was published on Thursday, ahead of a planned visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States later this month, when he is due to meet President Joe Biden and address Congress.

The signatories said they understood the risks of reporting from war zones but an independent press was the cornerstone of democracy. “We ask that Israel uphold its commitments to press freedom by providing foreign media with immediate, independent access to Gaza, and that Israel abides by its international obligations to protect journalists as civilians.”

Other major media organisations absent from the letter included Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.

The team reporting the Gaza war won Story of the Year for 2023 in Reuters annual Journalists of the Year awards. The photo team won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage. ■