10 Informed International


Shot, atacked, arrested, and dehumanised…


Photographer Musa Al-Shaer is helped by medics aſter being shot in the back


Yet as the violence escalates, there is no shortage of Palestinian journalists willing to put their lives on the line


Tree months ago Musa Al-Shaer was shot in the back. Six years ago he had felt a pain in his chest and right hand; he had been struck by the same-style rubber-coated metal bullets. He describes himself as lucky. On Friday 6 April, his colleague, Yaser Murtaja, was shot with live ammunition by snipers and died the following day. Neither Musa nor Yaser are soldiers or members of a militia. Tey were doing their jobs as journalists, clearly identified as press on their protective vests and helmets. Yaser was filming a series of protests in Gaza, known as the Great March of Return, commemorating the events of 1948 when Palestinians were expelled from their homes aſter the creation of Israel. He leſt behind him a wife


and child. He was one of nine Palestinian men killed in a space of a few hours. A week later Ahmad Abu Hussein,


Yaser’s fellow journalist, was shot dead by an Israeli sniper; again he was clearly identified as press. During his 35 years as a journalist Musa had been shot, atacked, arrested, verbally abused and dehumanised, he told an NUJ meeting in Parliament. His union, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), recorded more than 909 violations against Palestinian journalists in 2017. Also on the platform with Musa were Nasser Abu Bakar, PJS president, and Moaid Allami, president of the Federation of Arab Journalists (FAJ) and executive member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). Tey were in London as


guests of the NUJ and the IFJ to publicise the plight of journalists in Palestine and the Middle East. Nasser Abu Baker told the Westminster meeting of MPs and journalists the tactics deployed to silence journalists were “many and varied — restrictions on movement, the refusal by the Israeli authorities to acknowledge press cards… the seizure and oſten destruction of equipment, detentions of journalists and the use of lethal and targeted force“. He told MPs they must use their influence to protest against proposed legislation which would make it an offence, with a prison sentence of up to 10 years, for taking a picture of an Israeli soldier. Te bill was proposed by Robert Ilatov, a member of the Knesset and the chairman of the right-wing nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party. Te ban would cover social networks as well as traditional media.


Te meeting was told the number of violations against the press working in Gaza and the West Bank had escalated by more than a third (37 per cent) since the previous year, and the PSJ members said the situation had been exacerbated by Donald Trump’s policies and his decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Te FAJ’s Moaid Allami said Iraq had had the highest number of journalists killed in the world following the American invasion of Iraq. Since 2003, 474 journalists had been executed and hundreds more had been injured, he said. “Tere have been two atempts to assassinate me, resulting in serious injuries. Te head of the union in Iraq before me was murdered,” he added. Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general


secretary, told the meeting: “Every ones of these violations represent a human


Mussa Qawasma


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