The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today expressed support for a demand by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) board calling on the far-right Israeli government to grant the international media “expanded and unfettered access to Gaza,” stating that the “blanket ban has limited the world’s ability to witness the true cost of the war to all sides.”
The FPA statement says that the lack of media access raises “questions about what Israel does not want international journalists to see.”
Israel has already slaughtered more than 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and has destroyed vast areas of Gaza in a campaign of genocide, forced starvation and ethnic cleansing.
In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:
“Immediate and unrestricted international media access to devastated areas of Gaza and the West Bank is essential if the world is to fully comprehend the far-right Israeli government’s genocidal campaign targeting the Palestinian people. Israel hopes its crimes can be committed without witnesses. This cynical shielding of the ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced starvation from public scrutiny must come to an end.”
He noted that CAIR has in the past called for the release of journalists kidnapped or tortured by Israeli forces.
In February, CAIR welcomed a letter sent to Secretary Blinken – led by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA-11) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09) – and including 23 other members of Congress expressing their concern for the high death toll of journalists and significant challenges to press freedom in Gaza.
Hooper said CAIR has repeatedly condemned the far-right Israeli government’s targeting of journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 95 journalists and media workers were among the more than 33,000 killed since October 7.
SEE: Gaza journalist Diaa Al-Kahlout describes 33 harrowing days in Israeli custody
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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