Posted on 06/28/2002 4:17:37 AM PDT by kattracks
June 28— By Timothy Heritage
QALANDIYA CHECKPOINT, West Bank (Reuters) - The Israeli soldier shakes his head as he studies a journalist's credentials at this army checkpoint blocking the main road between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"No passage for journalists," he says, handing back the press card from inside his sentry box next to the huge concrete blocks and barbed wire that block the road.
An officer puts a call through to the local commander, but the reply is negative. "Try again tomorrow," he says.
Covering the 21-month-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been difficult and sometimes dangerous. Both sides have at times sought to impose restrictions on coverage.
It has become even harder since Israeli troops entered seven Palestinian-ruled cities in the West Bank and sealed them off after two suicide bombings in Jerusalem last week.
Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron, Jenin, Qalqilya and Tulkarm have all been declared "closed military zones" and placed under curfew.
Foreign journalists have been barred entry and local Palestinian correspondents take a risk if they leave their homes to report on the situation during the curfews, which are lifted for only a few hours each day.
Although some journalists have managed to enter the cities via back roads, fields, hills and gullies, and some of those who were already inside the cities have managed to send out pictures, coverage has been severely restricted.
ISRAEL SAYS NOT HIDING ANYTHING
Israel says it has limited journalists' access purely for security and safety reasons, and denies trying to hide anything.
"Israel, like any democratic state at conflict, sometimes limits particular freedoms for the defense of its population. Freedom can be restored, people's lives cannot," said Daniel Seaman, Director of Israel's Government Press Office.
Journalists have at times been in the firing line.
Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana's camera was pierced by a bullet as he filmed in Hebron on Tuesday, although he could not say who fired it. Israeli troops shot at an armored car carrying two Reuters journalists in Ramallah on Monday when they approached them during the night.
"Israel has no deliberate policy of shooting at journalists," Seaman said. "This is a situation where the press should not be there."
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a reporters' rights group based in New York, said earlier this year the West Bank had become the worst place for journalists to work -- despite violence in Afghanistan, Kashmir and other dangerous areas.
One foreign journalist has been killed during the conflict, several have been wounded and many have had narrow escapes.
PRESSURE FROM BOTH SIDES
Journalists have also felt pressure in other ways, and both sides monitor media coverage closely.
The Israeli authorities have accredited few Palestinian journalists this year, and say they will not issue any more press cards to Palestinians while the violence continues.
A press card facilitates travel through army blockades and into Jerusalem. The restrictions have particularly affected the operations of Western news agencies which rely on the support of a network of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinians working for Western news agencies have been held in an Israeli jail since April. Israeli officials say they are suspected of assisting militant groups, but they have not been charged with any crime and no evidence has been produced to support the accusations.
Seaman said Israel had not publicised these cases and that the Israeli justice system would give them a fair hearing.
A military court ruled last week that Reuters cameraman Jussry al-Jamal, held since April 30 on suspicion of aiding a "terror organization," could go free on July 10 but did not say why he must remain in jail until then. He has not been charged.
Palestinian officials have also put pressure on foreign journalists at times by trying to suppress coverage, including that of demonstrations supporting Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Palestinian gunmen confiscated film shot by foreign media organizations in April after militants killed a man suspected of collaborating with Israel in Bethlehem.
The CPJ accused Israel's government of using "extraordinary force" to keep journalists from covering a recent military offensive in the West Bank.
It has also said the Palestinian Authority's "heavy-handed and arbitrary treatment of journalists has fostered an oppressive climate of self-censorship in the Palestinian press."
Copyright 2002 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved.
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