An ARD team says it was detained and threatened by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. It’s the second time within a week. The broadcaster sees the incident as an attack on press freedom.
A team of journalists from ARD reports that they were temporarily detained and threatened by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. The incident was described on Sunday evening on “tagesschau.de” and “BR24”: Correspondent Jan-Christoph Kitzler was on the way back from an interview with a Palestinian employee and a German employee when they were stopped by Israeli soldiers south of the Palestinian city of Hebron had been.
Accordingly, the soldiers are said to have behaved extremely aggressively towards the journalists and weapons were held in the team vehicle several times. Bayerischer Rundfunk, which runs the ARD Tel Aviv studio, sees the incident as an attack on press freedom. When asked on Monday morning, the Israeli military said the soldiers’ actions had been investigated after the incident and the regulations had been reiterated. The army apologizes “for any inconvenience caused.”
ARD team researched violence perpetrated by Jewish settlers
According to the report, the ARD team was traveling to report on violence by radical Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “The soldiers threatened us with their weapons and asked us whether we were Jews. Our colleague was insulted as a traitor,” correspondent Kitzler is quoted as saying. It was only after more than an hour that the situation eased after additional soldiers and police were called in.
“For us, this is the second incident within a week. Our team clearly identified themselves as accredited press representatives and were far away from military security areas,” said the head of the ARD studio, Christian Limpert. “We cannot accept the actions of the Israeli military.”
The Foreign Press Association in Israel had already called on the Israeli army at the end of October to ensure the safety of journalists and reported two incidents in the West Bank in which soldiers harassed reporters. In one of them, ARD employees were also affected.
Source: Stern
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