“Media freedom is often a casualty of war, and Israel’s recent war with Iran is no exception. We have seen Israeli authorities use security fears to increase censorship, while extremist right-wing politicians have demonized the media, legitimizing attacks on journalists,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Despite hopes that we will see a ceasefire in Gaza this week, Israel’s government appears relentless in its determination to silence those who report critically on its military actions.”

After Haaretz newspaper published an interview with Israeli soldiers who said they were ordered to shoot at unarmed Gazans waiting for food aid, a mayor in southern Israel threatened to shut shops selling the popular liberal paper. This follows the government’s decision last year to stop advertising with Haaretz, accusing it of “incitement.”

Authorities are also pushing ahead with a bill to dismantle the public broadcaster, Kan, and shutter its news division, the country’s third-largest news channel. Meanwhile, government support has seen the right-wing Channel 14 grow in popularity.

The hostile climate fueled by Israel’s right-wing government has emboldened settler violence against journalists. On July 5, two Deutsche Welle (DW) reporters wearing press vests were attacked by Israeli settlers in Sinjil, West Bank — an incident condemned by Germany’s ambassador and the German Journalists’ Association, which called it “unacceptable that radical settlers are hunting down media professionals with impunity.” Reporters from AFP, The New York Times, and The Washington Post were also present. Palestinian journalists had to flee.

“War is a dangerous time for civil rights – rights that Netanyahu’s government is actively undermining as it moves toward dismantling democracy,” Haaretz Editor-in-Chief Aluf Benn told CPJ.

‘Broadcasts that serve the enemy’

During the Israel-Iran war of June 13 to 24, anti-press government actions included:

• A June 18 military order requiring army approval before broadcasting the aftermath of Iranian attacks on Israeli military sites. Haaretz reported that this order was illegal as it was not made public in the official government gazette or authorized by a parliamentary committee.

• On June 19, security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on Israelis who see people watching “Al Jazeera broadcasts or reporters” to report their sightings to authorities. Israel shut down the Qatari-based outlet in May 2024, and six of its journalists have been killed while reporting on Israel’s war in Gaza. Many Arabs in Israel still watch Al Jazeera broadcasts, and former Israeli officials have appeared on the network since the shutdown. 

“These are broadcasts that serve the enemy,” Ben-Gvir said. 

• On June 20, Ben-Gvir and communications minister Shlomo Karhi issued a directive that broadcasting from impact sites without written permission would be a criminal offense.

When Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara demanded that the ministers explain the legal basis for their announcement, the ministers said she was “trying to thwart” their efforts to ensure that foreign media “don’t help the enemy target us.”

• On June 23, Haaretz reported that the police’s legal adviser issued an order giving officers sweeping powers to censor journalists reporting from the impact sites.

“This directive, which primarily targets foreign media and joins a wave of police and ministerial efforts to obstruct news coverage, is unlawful and infringes on basic rights,” Tal Hassin, an attorney with Israel’s biggest human rights group, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), told CPJ.

ACRI petitioned the Attorney General, arguing that the police adviser did not have the legal authority to issue such an order. It has not received a response.

Journalists censored, detained, and abused

CPJ subsequently documented at least four incidents involving journalists who were abused and blocked from reporting.

• On June 20, police stopped a live broadcast from Tel Aviv by Turkish state-owned broadcaster TRT’s correspondent Mücahit Aydemir, although he told the officers he had the required permits, including authorization from the military censor. For several days afterwards, Aydemir received “unsettling phone calls” from unknown Hebrew-speakers, he told CPJ.

• On June 21, privately owned Channel 13’s journalist Ali Mughrabi and a camera operator, who declined to be named, citing fear of reprisals, were expelled from a drone crash site in Beit She’an, northern Israel, despite showing their press accreditation. During a live broadcast, Deputy Mayor Oshrat Barel questioned their credentials, shoved the cameraperson, and ordered them to leave. She later apologized.

“What we’re experiencing isn’t just about the media — it’s about citizenship,” Mughrab, an Israeli citizen of Palestinian origin, told CPJ.

• On June 22, a civilian police volunteer squad, led by far-right activist and rapper Yoav Eliasi, known as “The Shadow,” detained three Jerusalem-based, Arab Israeli journalists and one international journalist, after separating them from their non-Arab colleagues outside a building in Tel Aviv that had been damaged by an Iranian strike.

Mustafa Kharouf and Amir Abed Rabbo from the Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency, Ahmad Gharabli, with Agence France-Presse news agency, and another journalist who declined to be named, citing fear of reprisal, were held for three hours.  

Kharouf told CPJ, the unit asked them who was “Israeli” and allowed the non-Arab journalists to leave. 

“One officer accused us of working for Al Jazeera, even though we showed official press credentials,” said Kharouf.

“When I showed my ID, they told me I wasn’t allowed to film because I’m not Israeli – even though they treat us like Israelis when it comes to taxes,” Gharabli told CPJ.

Armed volunteer squads have rapidly grown from four before the October 2023 Hamas attack to around 900 new units, an expansion that “had negative effects on Arab-Jewish relations,” Dr. Ark Rudnitzky of Tel Aviv University told CPJ in an email. Squad members “tend to suspect an Arab solely because they are Arab,” he said.

“It was clear they targeted the journalists because they were Arab,” said Israeli journalist and witness Oren Ziv, who wrote about the incident.

The Central District Police told CPJ via email that the journalists were “evacuated from the building for security reasons related to their safety and were directed to alternative reporting locations.”

• On June 24,  Channel 13 correspondent Paz Robinson and a camera operator who declined to be named were reporting on a missile strike in southern Israel’s Be’er Sheva when a woman shouted that he was a “Nazi” and “Al Jazeera” and blocked him from filming, screaming, “You came to celebrate over dead bodies.”

“After I saw the woman wasn’t backing down, I decided to leave. I’m not here to fight with my own people. I’m not a politician. I came to cover events,” Robinson told CPJ.

Earlier in the war with Iran, CPJ documented eight incidents in which 14 journalists faced harassment, obstruction, equipment confiscation, incitement, or forced removal by the police.

The Israel Police Spokesperson’s Unit told CPJ via email that police “made significant efforts to facilitate safe, meaningful access for journalists” during the war with Iran.  “While isolated misunderstandings may occur…case was addressed promptly and professionally.”

CPJ’s emails to the Attorney General, Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk, Ben-Gvir, and Shlomo requesting comment did not receive any replies. 

Kholod Massalha is a CPJ consultant on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory and a researcher with years of experience in press freedom and freedom of expression issues.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Mohamed Mandour.

On the morning of Monday, February 6, police officers assaulted Shaheed, a reporter and videographer for the privately owned broadcaster Channel 13, and Misbaah, a camera operator for Channel 13, while they were covering protests near the country’s parliament, according to news reports and Channel 13 station manager Ibrahim Saeed, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app.

Protests broke out near the parliament building on Monday calling for the release of the opposition leader and former president, Abdulla Yameen, who was recently sentenced to 11 years in prison on money laundering and corruption charges, and ahead of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s final address ahead of elections in September.

Police charged at the protesters, and while doing so pepper-sprayed Shaheed and hit him with a shield, pushing him to the ground and knocking him unconscious, according to Saeed and a video of the incident posted to Twitter. Officers shoved Misbaah to the ground and stepped on him, according to those sources.

“Maldives authorities must investigate the police assault of journalists Hassan Shaheed and Ahmed Misbaah and hold the officers responsible to account,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Police must respect the right of journalists to freely and safely report on events of public interest ahead of the upcoming presidential election in September.”

In that video of Shaheed being pushed to the ground, he can be seen carrying a camera and wearing his press pass around his neck.

Misbaah received treatment for injuries to his stomach and Shaheed remains under medical observation as doctors suspect he received a brain hemorrhage and spinal injuries, Saeed said.

Maldives Police Commissioner Mohamed Hameed told CPJ by phone that police are conducting an internal review into the incident involving Shaheed, and denied that the journalist was pushed or sustained a head injury. Hameed said he was unaware of the incident involving Misbaah.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Israel’s justice ministry last month denied a report by Israeli tech site Calcalist about the allegedly unlawful use of Pegasus spyware by Israeli police. An internal investigation determined that the claims, which newspapers including The New York Times could not replicate, were largely unfounded.

However, the furor over the Calcalist report, and the ministry’s acknowledgement that police had used spyware on a phone belonging to a key witness in the corruption trial of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has prompted fears among journalists that any overhaul of Israel’s surveillance laws could hamper their reporting.

“We want to protect our sources,” said Anat Saragusti, press freedom director at the Union of Journalists in Israel, which sent a letter to the attorney general with the group’s demand. “We want to protect freedom of information, and we want to protect our assets.” 

A February statement from the justice ministry noted that in 2018 police infiltrated a phone belonging to Shlomo Filber, a now former director general of the Communications Ministry who was under investigation at the time. He is now state’s witness in the Netanyahu trial. 

In order to monitor Filber’s phone, police obtained a wiretapping warrant – a particular detail that raised the eyebrows of legal experts in the country.

“It’s unclear what exactly is the legal basis for what [police] have done,” said Michael Birnhack, a privacy law professor at Tel Aviv University. 

Israel has no law authorizing “cyber-tools” like spyware for law enforcement purposes, according to the Israel Democracy Institute – and the wiretapping law cited to monitor Filber’s phone dates back to 1979.

The decades-old wiretap law, said Birnhack, is an ill-fit to authorize spyware given that the technology can do so much more than listen in on calls – it can suck up old data in the form of texts, photos, voice memos, and more, without the owner’s knowledge. 

“The technological options exceed regular search and they exceed wiretapping,” he said.  

With spyware there’s also a risk of “exposing excessive data” beyond the scope of a warrant, said Birnhack — something that happened in Filber’s case.

According to the justice ministry, police acquired extra information like Filber’s contact list, which they said was not passed on to investigators. (The ministry also said that the spyware infiltration did not yield anything relevant to the investigation.)

Even if journalists are exempted from legislation regulating spyware, police use of the technology has implications for the profession. Anat Ben-David, a professor of society and technology at Israel’s Open University, worries about a chilling effect on the press. 

“This is uncharted territory at the moment, but I will say this: just knowing that this is a possibility could lead to self-censorship and to changing journalistic norms and instilling fear.”

Ben-David questions whether the technology belongs in the hands of police at all, given its extreme prying capabilities. 

Pegasus, made by the NSO Group – an Israeli company now under U.S. trade embargo – allows the purchaser to access virtually everything stored on a cell phone and activate its microphone and camera without the owner’s knowledge.

CPJ has documented the use of Pegasus to spy on journalists around the world. Amnesty International and the University of Toronto’s CitizenLab said it was found on Palestinian activists’ phones, though Israel has denied it was behind the alleged hacks.

The justice ministry did not identify Pegasus as the spyware used on Filber’s phone, but a later statement made it clear that Israeli police do have the controversial technology. The police department, said the statement, did not use the “Pegasus software in its hands” to spy without a warrant on the people named in the Calcalist report.

NSO Group spokesperson Liron Bruck replied “no comment” when CPJ asked in an email if it provided Pegasus or other spyware to Israeli police or other authorities. An Israeli police spokesperson said in an email the department could not “confirm or deny” use of Pegasus.

Ben-David also worries that the impetus to legislate spyware is following a pattern in which Israel introduces new monitoring technology and later legalizes its use against citizens.

“Surveillance technologies are introduced through the back door, and after petitions to the Supreme Court they enter through the front door through legislation,” said Ben-David.  

She pointed to the security services’ tracking of cell phones to curb transmission of COVID-19. After repeated legal challenges from civil rights groups, the Israeli Knesset passed a law approving the tracking. In March 2021, Israel’s Supreme Court outlawed the practice for Israelis who cooperated with contact tracing efforts, though it was briefly reinstated by emergency order to counter the Omicron variant.

Journalists, however, had been exempted from the tracking since April 2020 after a petition from the Union of Journalists, the group that wants to make sure the press is excluded from spyware laws.

Israeli journalists do have some protections. A 1987 Supreme Court ruling said that journalists don’t have to reveal their sources unless a court deems it critical to prevent a crime or save a life.

But journalists can find their sources exposed through other means. Police obtained information about Filber’s calls with two Israeli broadcast journalists, Amit Segal of Channel 12 and Raviv Drucker of Channel 13, when it spied on Filber’s phone, according to Haaretz.

Segal told CPJ that he learned that his interviews were snooped on from the newspaper, while Drucker learned about his exposure in the course of his own reporting. A justice ministry spokesperson would not confirm or deny the Haaretz report in a phone call with CPJ.

It’s not clear if police used spyware or another type of monitoring technology to listen in on the calls with the journalists.

Regardless of the method used, Segal told CPJ it was “not very pleasant” to learn that police had accessed his interviews with Filber, especially since he reports critically on the police.

“They shouldn’t wiretap conversations with journalists,” said Segal, who added that police are not supposed to transcribe conversations between journalists and their sources. “It is not OK, but it is not the most severe attack on journalists the world has ever seen.” 

Drucker, for his part, called it a “breach of the journalistic relationship between a source and a journalist.” A private conversation with a source “is not something that should be exposed.”

Drucker added that he hopes lawmakers considering surveillance legislation “will take into account the interest of the free press and the free media and journalists’ ability to do their work.”

Now, Segal, Drucker, and the Israeli press corps at large, are watching to see if the government will heed their concerns.   

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Naomi Zeveloff/CPJ Features Editor.

There were many other press freedom violations during the recent flare-up, which included unusual levels of street violence between Arabs and Jews in Israeli cities. Inside Israel, Jewish far-right groups in particular harassed and assaulted local journalists covering their organized attacks on their Arab neighbors, as CPJ documented. 

CPJ reviewed screenshots of WhatsApp conversations attained by local journalists in which members of far-right groups encouraged such assaults on the press: “[We] can do both [target Arabs and journalists], it really doesn’t contradict. There are Arab terrorists and there are media terrorists,” read one message. Another member encouraged others to march to Neve Ilan, a town in central Israel where many media and film studios are located, and to bring hammers and Molotov cocktails with them. 

Threats of violence against journalists didn’t emanate from just one group: Israeli journalists told CPJ they were also at risk while reporting in Arab neighborhoods inside Israel. CPJ spoke via phone with four Israeli journalists about their experiences in recent weeks, the press freedom environment in Israel, and how they are protecting themselves going forward. Their interviews have been edited for length and clarity. 

Roland Nowitski, cameraman at Kan News

On May 13 you were filming a right-wing march in Tel Aviv and were about to go live on the air when you were attacked by some of the marchers. Tell me what happened. 

The attackers were planning to attack TV Channels 12 and 13. These days, it doesn’t matter what channel you work for. The fact that you’re carrying a camera or microphone on the street means you’re attacked. I was sent to cover a gathering of right-wing groups in southern Tel Aviv who were planning to attack the Arab neighborhood in Jaffa [next to Tel Aviv]. People in those groups were encouraging each other to attack the media.  

We arrived at the march half an hour prior to the 7 p.m. news, and we kept a respectful distance of 50 meters [164 feet]. We were approached by two guys who said, “Get the fuck out of here before your cameras and hands get smashed.” So we walked farther back. At 6:59 p.m., I was told by the newsroom to put the journalist in front of the camera and start the report. That second, a guy grabbed the lens of the camera and said, “You left-wing press, get out of here, you’re supposed to be covering [violence against Israeli Jews] in [mixed Jewish and] Arab cities and not here.”

We walked farther away, and the journalist was standing in front of me. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, two guys came up to us. The guy who grabbed the lens and a second one, who smashed me in the skull with a helmet. On the third hit, my camera was smashed. Right after that, they stole the camera and ran around the corner. The police stopped the attackers, and I later went to hospital. Later on, I was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome. I have neck and lower back pain. When the helmet landed on my skull, my neck cracked. My left eye is foggy right now; I’m not used to it. I’m a cameraman, and I’m used to seeing everything clearly. 

Were you wearing any protective equipment at the time?

I was wearing knee protection and elbow protection. I was wearing a biker jacket because I didn’t know what would happen. It protects my shoulders, spine, and elbows. I wasn’t sure if I should wear a bulletproof jacket that protects from stabbing. I wasn’t wearing my helmet because the clashes hadn’t started. I was attacked by a single person, not by a mob. Later on, I learned that a bodyguard was sent to protect us. But there was a delay and he arrived about 20 minutes after the attack. 

Have you ever been attacked reporting before?

Yes. In September 2020 a journalist and I were attacked by 13-year-old kids in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Bnei Brak [near Tel Aviv]. We were evacuated by the local police. Our car was damaged when rocks were thrown at it. We didn’t suffer any physical damage, but the car had to be repaired. Last month we were attacked by kids in the [West Bank] Palestinian village of Sebastia. Huge rocks were thrown at our car; they hit the door but didn’t go through the window. 

I have worked as a journalist in the field for 20 years and things have changed. Over the past decade, journalists have become victims, especially in West Jerusalem. When you find yourself in the field, the people who want to break your camera don’t care what channel you work for. The camera is an attraction for a physical attack. Journalists are targeted by both sides.

How has the most recent attack affected your mental health?

I’ve been to Syria, I’ve been to Iraq. After 20 years of risking my life, I’ve had enough. The attack in Tel Aviv could end up changing my specialty as a cameraman. Before, I was a news and a [TV features] cameraman. I’m probably going to switch to just features. 

Yoav Zehavi, reporter at Kan News

You were out reporting with Nowitski on the day of the May 13 attack, but you weren’t injured. What were you expecting when you went out to report? 

Before I got there, I knew that we would be in danger, but I didn’t think it would be this violent. The physical violence surprised me.

In general, do you feel safe as a journalist in Israel?

No. But I continue to do my job. It’s the first time I’ve felt unsafe to this extent. Now when people go out to cover protests, [some news organizations are] giving them a bodyguard. I’m not a senior journalist in Israel, so typically I can go out in the street and I’m not afraid. That week for me was a milestone, personally in my life, and generally in Israel’s history. It looked like total anarchy in the street. 

Many Israeli journalists are also getting harassed online over their coverage of the recent violence, according to news reports. Is this something you’re experiencing?

It happens all the time, mainly on Twitter and Facebook. It’s not violent harassment. Some Israelis don’t like the media. They call us left-wing media, fake news media. They say, “You don’t represent the people, you’re liars.” You see so much hate and it makes you think, is it worth it? Every morning you wake up and you go on Twitter or Facebook and they’re saying really bad things about you. They’re sending you awful messages. During times of war, everything accelerates. 

I also see harassment in the comments beneath stories I wrote. After this attack happened and the video of the attack went viral, most of the comments on the video say, it’s “left-wing media, you deserve it.” I’m also getting messages of support, but most of the messages are telling us that we are the ones to blame, and some of them also say it’s a shame they didn’t kill us. It’s pretty tough. People don’t usually leave these comments on things I write about international news, it’s just when I write about things in my country.

Omri Maniv, investigative journalist and police reporter at Channel 13

You have been attacked several times while reporting over the past few weeks. Tell me what happened.

The first attack, by Jews, was in [the Tel Aviv suburb of] Bat Yam on May 11, the day of the lynching [when a group of Jewish Israelis pulled an Arab driver from his car and beat him in an attack captured on live television, according to news reports]. I walked with a group of ultra-right people. They walked north because they wanted to go to Jaffa to attack Arabs. As we were walking, one person in this group hit me two or three times with their hands. It was very light. It was because I had been with a cameraman and they saw that I’m a journalist. They yelled at me, “don’t shoot with the camera.” They yelled many curses against me. 

A couple of days after, in the Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv, they attacked the Kan News cameraman [Nowitski]. I arrived 20 minutes after that attack. They also attacked us, but there were a lot of police there then. They still pushed me, but it didn’t hurt. We don’t know who they are, or if they were the same people as the previous attack against me. 

The third attack that week happened in Jaffa, when you arrived to report on the aftermath of the firebombing of a family’s home. What happened when you got to Jaffa?

We heard at about 1 a.m. on Friday, May 14 that there was an event in Jaffa where people threw Molotov cocktails into a house. At first they thought Jewish people did that, then they found out it was Arabs. 

[Editor’s note: Police arrested an Arab man for throwing a Molotov cocktail into the home of a family on May 14, severely burning a 12-year-old boy, according to news reports.]

The Arabs there were sure that it was Jews who did this. A lot of them went to the street and waited for Jews to come. I went to Jaffa on the main road; the police said it’s too dangerous. But I am a journalist and I know the streets there and I went inside. I was in my car and my cameraman, who is Arab, was in the car behind me. There was a group of about 10 or 15 people waiting outside, so I opened the windows when I got there and told them that I’m a journalist. At first, it helped, because the people were 18 or 20 years old and they understood. Then came the younger people, who were about 13, 14 years old. They didn’t care whether or not I’m a journalist. I’m Jewish, and that’s what’s important. They first started beating the car, and they broke the outside mirror. My window was open, and one of them slapped me three or four times.

Then one of them pepper-sprayed me directly in my eyes. It was burning. I put my foot on the gas and drove away from them quickly to the police line. Because of the adrenaline, I was able to drive away with my eyes a bit open. After an hour I started to open my eyes, but the pepper spray was still on my skin. 

It could have been a lot worse. I think that because I said I was a journalist, it did help me. The other people waiting there for Jews didn’t attack me because they heard that I’m a journalist and that I’m going to cover what happened in their neighborhood. So it did help me, but not completely. 

What’s the situation like now?

I continued to work, and the day after I was in Jaffa with the security guard. Things are a lot more relaxed than how it was. In Jaffa and in Lod [outside Tel Aviv], everything is open. In one second, everything changed. It can change back. But you can feel normal life on the streets.

Erez Cohen, cameraman for Kan News

Your car was attacked when you drove home from work. What happened?

I was finishing my work at [the Israeli side of the barrier of] the Gaza Strip on May 11. It was about 1 a.m., and I had covered events on the second or third day of the war. I picked up my son from a bus station and we were about one mile away from my home. On the way there is a Bedouin town. I passed nearby and the police asked me to stop. They asked me where I was going and they told me to be careful, as there were burning tires on the road. He didn’t say they were attacking cars. 

When I passed the police, I saw that the road was blocked by stones. People were covering their faces, and they were selecting which cars to attack. They were looking for Jews to attack. I locked my car from the inside, but they were throwing stones and trying to break the windows. The glass of the car’s windshield and the passenger is plastic, so it’s harder to smash. They broke my back windows with stones. 

I have a piece of paper on the front of my dashboard that says that I’m a cameraman and a journalist with Kan News. It’s in English and Hebrew, so I don’t know if that is why they attacked my car. The equipment was in the back and it was in a plastic suitcase. It wasn’t damaged, and the equipment wasn’t stolen either. 

How does this incident compare with your experience of reporting in the region?

The situation inside Israel it’s much scarier. [When rockets are shot from] Gaza, you have time to run away, you have time to go to the shelter. You know what to do to protect yourself. When you’re on your way home it’s much scarier.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Lucy Westcott/James W. Foley Emergencies Research Associate.

The incidents occurred following the outbreak of protests over the eviction of Palestinian families from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in favor of Israeli settlers, according to news reports.

On April 21, protesters chanting right-wing slogans in Jerusalem’s Zion Square attacked Suleiman Maswada, a reporter for the state-owned broadcaster Kan 11, Yossi Eli, a reporter for the Israeli broadcaster Channel 13, and Yedidya Epshtei, a camera operator for Channel 13, according to the ITONAIM data and footage of the incident shared on social media by the journalists.

In an interview with Channel 13, Eli said that protesters kicked him and knocked him to the ground, punched Maswada, and pepper sprayed Epshtei while shouting insults and threatening to attack them if they continued filming. He said that the team had set up near a police car, but that the officers left right before they went on-air.

Footage shared by Maswada shows protesters knocking down his camera, and two more videos show protesters trying to cover the camera’s lens, and a masked protester kicking Epshtei in the back.

On May 6, in Sheikh Jarrah, an Israeli police officer shoved Moshe Nussbaum, a reporter for the broadcaster Channel 12, after he complained to the officer about police violence against protesters, according to the ITONAIM data and footage of the incident posted on social media.

Also in Sheikh Jarrah on May 6, an Israeli police officer threw a stun grenade near Hassan Shelan, a reporter for the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronot’s news website Ynet, which exploded and sent shrapnel into the journalist’s leg, according to ITONAIM, Shelan’s employer, and tweets by the journalist.

Shelan was filming the protest when police officers ordered that he leave the scene, according to Ynet, which reported that the journalist showed police his press card, but the officers shoved him away. An officer then threw the stun grenade at Shelan and shouted for him to leave, according to that report.

On May 11, members of a protest organized by the Israeli right-wing groups Lehava and Otzma Yehudit attacked Channel 13 reporter Baruck Kara while he was covering their demonstration in the central Israeli city of Ramla, according to ITONAIM, news reports, and footage of the incident. 

That footage shows Kara trying to report while protesters scream at him, shove him, try to snatch the microphone from his hand, and cover his camera operator’s lens.

On May 12, an unidentified person threw a stone that hit Ayala Hason, a news anchor for Channel 13, in the head while she was covering riots in the Israeli city of Lod, according to the ITONAIM data and news reports. 

Those reports blamed members of the far-right group known as “La Familia” for throwing the stone, and said that they also tried to smash Channel 13 camera operator Rami Sigawi’s camera and threw a stone at sound engineer Kobi Shemer.

On May 14, unidentified people in the Israeli city of Ramat Gam shoved and screamed at Channel 13 reporter Lior Keinan while she was covering the fall of a Hamas rocket in the city, according to ITONAIM and footage of the incident. 

That footage shows Keinan interviewing an eyewitness when a passerby points at the camera and says that the media is to blame for the situation; a second passerby then started screaming at Keinan and shoved her until border police officers intervened and forced the passerby to leave.

On May 15, rioters in Tel Aviv’s Jaffa neighborhood attacked Omri Maniv, a reporter for Channel 13, while he was covering the riots from his car, according to the ITONAIM data, news reports, and a Tweet by Maniv. 

Rioters broke the mirrors of Maniv’s car and pepper sprayed the journalist, who was subsequently treated by paramedics, according to those reports. In his tweet, Maniv said that he was not seriously injured.

Also on May 15, Israeli police in the city of Umm al-Fahm fired a stun grenade whose shrapnel hit Janel Jabrin, a freelance reporter who contributes to the Israeli daily Haaretz21, in his right knee while he was covering protests in the city, according to ITONAIM, photos posted to social media, and the journalist, who spoke to the Skeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom, a regional press freedom group.

Jabrin told Skeyes that he was covering the protests along with a group of journalists when a police car stopped near them and fired stun grenades and rubber bullets at them. He said he was hit by shrapnel from a stun grenade and was taken to a clinic for treatment. Those photos on social media show that Jabrin was wearing a helmet and a protective vest when he was attacked.

In response to an email from CPJ, the Israeli police’s spokesperson office referred CPJ to a website to file an official complaint against the police. CPJ responded by reiterating a request for comment about the attacks on journalists, but did not immediately receive any reply.

CPJ emailed Channel 13 and 12, Kan 11, and Haaretz for comment, and messaged the outlets on their social media channels, but did not immediately receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.