ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It is day 545 of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. And for 545 days, Israel has blocked outside journalists from entering Gaza to independently cover the war. That means it's been almost solely up to Palestinian journalists there to report on a war they themselves are living through. Organizations in Israel and internationally have been pressing for access. But as NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reports - from Tel Aviv, not Gaza - there has been very little movement from the government.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Last month, after Israel broke the nearly two-month ceasefire with Hamas, 30-year-old freelance journalist Shrouq Aila posted on her Instagram from Gaza.
SHROUQ AILA: This is a call to foreign journalists outside Gaza.
LONSDORF: You need to push harder to get access to come help report on the ground, she wrote.
AILA: We as journalists are physically and emotionally exhausted, displaced, bombarded, grieving, starving, yet still forced to stand before the cameras to report on the massacres.
LONSDORF: Like many Palestinian journalists in Gaza, including NPR's own producer there, Anas Baba, Aila has been tirelessly covering the war while struggling with all the hardships that come with it. It takes a huge toll emotionally, physically, mentally.
AILA: We are human, and we are not superheroes.
LONSDORF: She says she and the rest of her colleagues in Gaza have watched as foreign journalists rush to cover wars in other places - Lebanon, Ukraine, even Sudan.
AILA: And we have seen, like, how media outlets - they just run. They jump to do the coverage. It's just only Gaza that left behind.
CLAYTON WEIMERS: It's pretty unprecedented for an entire territory to be blocked off for such a sustained period of time.
LONSDORF: Clayton Weimers is the U.S. executive director of Reporters Without Borders, a nonprofit that promotes freedom of the press and one of many international organizations and media outlets, including NPR, that has been calling on Israel to allow journalists into Gaza since the war began in October of 2023. Throughout the war, Israel has allowed a select few in on highly controlled short embeds with the military. But it has continuously said that the situation on the ground is too dangerous for independent access, a call that Weimer says isn't one for Israel to make.
WEIMERS: Frankly, it's not up to the Israeli government to decide what risks journalists are willing to undertake. A free press gets to make that decision.
JODIE GINSBERG: As a democracy, as a country that has talked repeatedly about its defense of a free press, the actions that Israel are taking are anything but.
LONSDORF: Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, says it's not just access or lack thereof that's the problem.
GINSBERG: This is a conflict for journalists that is like no other currently underway in the world.
LONSDORF: CPJ has documented more than 170 journalists killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war, making it the deadliest conflict for reporters since the organization began gathering data in 1992. Israel has repeatedly denied any deliberate targeting of journalists, saying it targets Hamas. And as Ginsberg points out, war correspondents under such risks and strain traditionally operate on rotations.
GINSBERG: Gazan journalists not only have had no one else coming in to relieve them, they cannot leave.
LONSDORF: The Foreign Press Association in Israel, of which NPR is a member, has repeatedly appealed to the Israeli government, filing not one but two petitions to Israel's Supreme Court. The first was rejected in January of 2024, citing security concerns. The second was filed in July of last year. It has stalled for months, as the court has allowed the state six different extensions for its response.
Media watchers both in Israel and internationally have warned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are seeking to undermine free press in the country, especially in regards to the war in Gaza, not just by limiting access but also silencing outlets within Israel that have been critical of the war. In recent months, the Israeli government has forcefully closed the offices of Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank, banning it from the air in Israel, and also imposed economic sanctions on Haaretz, a popular Israeli newspaper that has reported on the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. NPR reached out to Netanyahu's office several times for the story. We received no response.
OREN PERSICO: He sees any critical press as unfair. A honest press in the eyes of Netanyahu is a political tool to advance his position.
LONSDORF: Oren Persico is an Israeli journalist covering the media. He says he thinks Israel's block on Gaza isn't just about limiting criticism.
PERSICO: I think the main objective of this ban is to force the international audience to rely solely on Palestinian journalists. And their reporting is much more easier to delegitimize.
LONSDORF: Saying they're working with Hamas, for example - and Persico points out, without independent media access, all of that is much harder to dispute. Last week, 23-year-old Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. He was in his car, wearing his blue press vest. Israel had previously accused him of being a Hamas sniper, something he and Al Jazeera both vehemently denied. A message Shabat wrote in case he was killed was posted posthumously to his Twitter. Each day was a battle for survival, he wrote. I risked everything to report the truth, and now I am finally at rest, something I haven't known in the past 18 months.
Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Tel Aviv. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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