Two leading media watchdogs, target=_new>Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans
Frontieres, or RSF) and the target=_new>Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), have issued
strong statements in recent days condemning IDF actions which
wounded, injured, threatened, and in one case killed, journalists
from a range of foreign news outlets.

"The press freedom situation has deteriorated as never before in
Israel's history," said RSF in a statement published Sunday. "The
Israeli army is knowingly targeting journalists in a deliberate
policy of intimidation," the Paris-based group said.

The group was reacting to reports Friday of IDF gun and grenade
attacks aimed at 24 reporters parked across the street from the
headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, one of
six major cities in the West Bank that have been brought directly
under Israeli control in the most recent stage of the offensive.

The journalists had driven to the West Bank capital in armored
press cars to cover a meeting between Arafat and visiting United
States envoy Anthony Zinni when a military vehicle rammed a CNN car
twice, and soldiers threw several stun grenades, one of which
exploded at the foot of CNN reporter Michael Holmes, according to
reports. Although no injuries were reported, a bullet hole was later
discovered in the CNN car.

An Israeli army spokeswoman was quoted by The Washington
Post as saying that the soldiers threw stun grenades at the
journalists because they did not "cease and desist. This is a closed
military zone and they should not have been there in the first
place."

The incident was the latest in a string of attacks on the press
that RSF has documented since the intifada, or uprising, began in
September, 2000. Fifty-three journalists have been wounded over that
period, mostly by Israeli gunfire, according to the group.

RSF said that at least five journalists had been wounded since
March 29, and 20 had come under fire. Those wounded included Carlos
Handal, a cameraman for an Egyptian television station, Anthony
Shahid, an American correspondent for The Boston Globe, and
Majadi Banura, a cameraman for the Qatari Al-Jazeera
television station. At least eight Palestinian journalists had been
arrested.

Last month Italian photographer Raffaele Ciriello became the
first foreign journalist killed in the conflict when he was shot
dead in Ramallah amid a hail of Israeli machine-gun fire.

"We are outraged by the Israeli army's continuing attacks against
journalists," said CPJ's Middle East program coordinator Joel
Campagna. "We call on the IDF to lift the restrictions now in place
on media access to several towns and cities of the West Bank," he
said in an appeal Friday.

The appeal was given an international dimension by comments from
the director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koichiro Matsuura, who said,
"Everywhere in the world, and in all circumstance, freedom of
expression and press freedom are basic rights. There can be no
justification to slighting them...I solemnly call on Israel to
respect [these rights] scrupulously."

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