Response to the National Union of Journalists letter regarding the treatment of journalists in Gaza

Irish Secretary, National Union of Journalists

I acknowledge receipt of your letter on behalf of members of the National Union of Journalists in Ireland, however, I must take issue with your claims and accusations contained therein.

While many journalists have tragically died in the war, which was initiated by the October 7 massacre and ongoing rocket attacks by Hamas against civilian communities in southern Israel, it appears that you are attempting to hold Israel solely accountable for that.

The death of any innocent civilian or journalist is tragic, yet unfortunately not always avoidable in the context of a war and operations in active combat zones. I wish to emphasise that Israel does not deliberately target journalists or media workers. In fact, the extensive efforts that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) employs to avoid harming non-combatants is extensively documented and I invite you to review the IDF’s subsite linked below for some details of this. https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/the-hamas-terrorist-organization/how-is-the-idf-minimizing-harm-to-civilians-in-gaza/ 

Conversely, Hamas’s cruel atrocities were premeditated and primarily directed at civilian communities in Israel. They were facilitated by the construction and use of extensive tunnel networks in Gaza, the manufacture of missiles from materials diverted from the civilian population and the exploitation and abuse of civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools for terrorist use, while using the people of Gaza as human shields.

Regrettably, we do not seem to read about such specific issues in the vast majority of the coverage of the war in mainstream Irish media. Nor do we hear many questions being asked about these issues, or why Hamas insists on keeping in captivity in Gaza, the more than one hundred men, women and children kidnapped from Israel.

I would ask whether your organisation has protested about the numerous military operatives affiliated to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who, posing as journalists, were complicit in the attacks of October 7, 2023. We have published compelling evidence of this which includes personnel tables, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories, and even salary documents. These documents also serve as proof of the integration of Hamas terrorists within the Qatari Al Jazeera media network. Most of the journalists that were exposed as operatives in Hamas' military wing spearheaded the propaganda for Hamas at Al Jazeera, especially in the northern Gaza Strip. You can link to the relevant information here https://bit.ly/3A99AvD and the original documents in Arabic that were located in the Gaza Strip, here: https://bit.ly/47rkER6

I would have hoped that an organisation such as yours would acknowledge and condemn such a gross violation of international journalistic ethics. Furthermore, during the course of the last year, it appears that most Irish media outlets have chosen to accept as ‘fact’ information disseminated by Hamas and its affiliates. For example, there is no questioning of data presented by the so-called ‘Health Ministry’ in Gaza which is controlled by Hamas, a designated terrorist entity in the EU and elsewhere. 

Lasty, I am compelled to question why most Irish media outlets, in their reporting of the war and wider region, have practically ignored the malign role of Iran and its support and funding of its proxies; Hamas and Hezbollah.

It is evident that many Irish people are very troubled by the war, while thankfully being far removed from it, but it is also evident that many people here are unaware of the ideology and goals of the Iranian theocracy which include the annihilation of Israel, the only Jewish state in the world. Similarly, the lack of any significant Irish media focus on the Hezbollah rocket attacks into northern Israel for the last year, which have forced more than 60,000 Israeli civilians to flee their homes, clearly contributes to a lack of understanding of Israel’s operations against Hezbollah, another outlawed terrorist organisation. Only when Israel began taking action against Hezbollah did the Irish media take interest in the situation on the Israel-Lebanese border.

Regrettably and by any objective analysis, the general coverage of the war and Israel related issues in Irish mainstream media is characterised by a strong anti-Israel bias, distortions of truth and a selective presentation of information to its audience. 

Dana Erlich
Ambassador of Israel