Palestinian Territories

Three pro-Fatah Palestinian newspapers published in the West Bank have been barred from distribution in the Gaza Strip, and told not to criticise the Hamas government in order to be permitted into the country, according to the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Index on Censorship. MADA has also condemned the use of tear gas...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on authorities in Gaza to allow three pro-Fatah Palestinian papers published in the West Bank to be allowed entry into the territory. The newspapers say they were told they had to sign an agreement stating they would not criticise the government before they’d be allowed to distribute in Gaza. The West Bank-printed newspapers had been banned...

The deposed government of Hamas movement still bars the circulation of the three major West Bank-based Palestinian dailies in the Gaza Strip for the third day after Israel allowed their entrance into the costal enclave on Wednesday, the dailies' circulation agents said Friday, according to Xinhua. Shukri Shublaq, one of the circulation agents in the Gaza Strip, told Xinhua that officers from the...

The climate continues to be very oppressive for Palestinian journalists, who are still subject to arrests, physical attacks and searches as a result of tension between the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). In one of the latest incidents, Samer Rwayched, a correspondent of Sawt Al-Aqsa (a radio station linked...

Palestinian journalist Mustafa Sabri’s home in Qaliqilya, in the north of the West Bank, was raided by members of the security forces as he was about to give an interview on March 9, just hours after he was released from prison on payment of 5,000 Jordanian dinars (5,160 euros) in bail, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The newspaper Filastine’s former bureau chief, Sabri had been...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to heed a High Court order and release journalist Tariq Abu Zaid immediately. A four-person special military court in Nablus sentenced Abu Zaid, a correspondent who reported on camera for Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV, to 18 months in prison on February 16 on charges of "undermining the status of the authority, and...

There has been a tit-for-tat arrests of journalists by Palestinian political rivals Hamas and Fatah of late, each side carrying out an arrest in response to an arrest by the other faction, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The latest victim is Mohammed Eshtawi, the head of pro-Hamas satellite TV station Al-Aqsa’s operations in the West Bank, who was arrested by the Palestinian...

The West Bank-based Palestinian Authorities have detained since Monday even as the Hamas-led government in Gaza continued harassing journalists, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Mohamed Eshtewi, Al-Aqsa television bureau chief in the West Bank, was arrested on Monday near a supermarket in the city of Tulkarem following two days of intermittent police...

The Hamas interior ministry has decided to deny Palestinian and foreign journalists access to the southern city of Rafah and to all hospitals in the Gaza Strip until further notice. The ban was issued on August 14, after fighting broke out in Rafah between the Hamas government and a radical Islamist group. "The Hamas-led government's interior ministry has again demonstrated a desire to control...

The Palestinian Authority has suspended the operations of Al-Jazeera in the West Bank after the satellite channel aired a controversial interview on Tuesday. The suspension, according to a Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information statement, came on Wednesday and will remain in place until "the judiciary issues a ruling on the subject." The Ministry of Information's actions came a day after Al...