The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today supported a call by more than 60 media and civil society organizations – coordinated by the Committee to Protect Journalists – demanding that Israel to give journalists independent access to Gaza.
The coalition of international media outlets, including the Associated Press, BBC, CNN, New York Times, and Washington Post – notes that no independent media access to Gaza has been permitted since the start of Israel’s invasion.
In its letter, the media coalition stated in part:
“Nine months into the war, international reporters are still being denied access to Gaza except for rare and escorted trips arranged by the Israeli military. This effective ban on foreign reporting has placed an impossible and unreasonable burden on local reporters to document a war through which they are living. More than 100 journalists have been killed since the start of the war and those who remain are working in conditions of extreme deprivation. The result is that information from Gaza is becoming harder and harder to obtain and that the reporting which does get through is subject to repeated questions over its veracity.”
CAIR’s support for media access to Gaza comes as The Guardian reports that Israel is using munitions designed to maximize casualties, resulting in the massive number of deaths women and children. Israel has slaughtered almost 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children. Other estimates put the total death toll at 186,000.
In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:
“Israel’s far-right government has block international media access to Gaza and murdered local media professionals in a cynical effort to keep the world from witnessing its ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass destruction, and forced starvation. The Biden administration, the main enabler of Israel’s genocide, must live up to its claims that it supports press freedom and demand that Israel allow free access by the international media to Gaza.”
Yesterday, CAIR condemned a reported decision by the Biden administration to send Israel the 500-pound bombs for its genocide in Gaza that had previously been held back.
Also yesterday, CAIR questioned the Biden administration’s “silence” about daily Israeli war crimes, torture of prisoners, ethnic cleansing, forced starvation, and massacres.
CAIR also condemned the latest Israeli massacre at a school in Gaza in which dozens of civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a camp for displaced people outside a school in Gaza.
Earlier this week, CAIR called for action by the Biden administration after United Nations rights experts accused Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” in Gaza.
CAIR also condemned the reported Israeli killings of a father and grandfather by running them over with a tank during in Gaza, the killing of 17 members of a Palestinian family – including 14 women and children – and the horrific condition of a prisoner released from Israeli detention.
Earlier this week, CAIR said a letter published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet estimating that some 186,000 may have died since Israel’s invasion of Gaza once again proves that a genocide is occurring. CAIR also called on the Biden administration to address new reports that Israeli soldiers are being permitted to kill civilians and destroy homes at will, without rules of engagement.
On Sunday, CAIR called on the Biden administration to address new reports of Israeli rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners and the alleged summary execution of detainees.
On Saturday, CAIR condemned what it called the latest “Israeli war crimes of the day,” including a new massacre at a school in Gaza, the killing of journalists and former detainees, and the forced displacement of almost the entire population of Gaza.
Earlier this month, CAIR called on the Biden administration to take action following new allegations of Israeli torture of Palestinian detainees.
On Friday, CAIR expressed horror in response to viral footage of a young Palestinian girl in Rafah struggling to survive after an Israeli attack blew her jaw off.
CAIR also condemned South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham for racist remarks he made about Palestinians on the Fourth of July.
END
CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com