ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER: Every morning, a dangerous game of cat and mouse unfolds on the Gaza border as foreign photographers seek to get around the tight grip that Israel has imposed on information on its war on Gaza.
As dawn breaks, mud-splattered jeeps veer off the main road and drive at breakneck speed across the bumpy terrain in search of action shots of the troops deployed along the border.
Creeping through the undergrowth, a handful of photographers stop several hundred meters from two of Israel’s big guns, waiting to catch on film the precise moment the cannons blast their payload toward Gaza — a deafening roar which rocks the ground.
Those who are caught — and Israel’s military police are everywhere — are arrested, their cameras seized and in some cases, the images erased. Others say they have been held at gunpoint.
“It’s a game of cat and mouse,” said one photographer. “The military police are everywhere — it’s impossible to work like this.”
Keeping foreign journalists away is one of several steps that Israel has taken to control the information about its biggest military operation since the 2006 war in Lebanon. Others have included confiscating the mobile phones of thousands of soldiers ahead of the launch of its massive ground offensive.
Despite a ruling from Israel’s Supreme Court on Friday, which ordered the state to allow groups of up to 12 foreign reporters in to Gaza to cover the war, no one has yet been permitted to enter.
On the Palestinian side, Hamas fighters are preventing photographers from reaching areas where fighters are battling Israeli ground troops.
The result: The only images available of one of Israel’s largest and deadliest offensives in Gaza are night shots of troops walking across the border, smoke rising from Gaza and pictures of the dead.
The situation was starkly different less than three years ago, when journalists enjoyed much freer access to the fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Danny Seaman, head of the Government Press Office, explained the new situation: “No reporters are allowed into Gaza because our soldiers will not sacrifice their lives to protect them. The world press doesn’t care about the suffering of the Israeli people. They are only worried about the Palestinian. Why isn’t anyone reporting on what’s happening in southern Israel?”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor was more diplomatic. “I can’t say that there is a deliberate and overall decision not to allow reporters in. There is fighting at the crossings. Hamas is shelling the crossings and the army does not want to take responsibility for the lives of civilians,” he said.
