Freedom Index
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Police documents released in response to a court appeal by Italian freelance photojournalist Alessandro Stefanelli against being banned from entering Israel last year to continue his coverage of the West Bank show that Israel has established a police body that reviews and analyses work by foreign journalists and that these dossiers are used as the basis for denying entry into the country.
Stefanelli’s coverage was found by police to be “one-sided” according to the documents and police linked to articles that purportedly proved this, even though in some cases Stefanelli, who contributes to Le Soir, La Stampa and many other publications, had only taken the pictures and not written the text. In one case police cited as evidence a tweet by someone else in response to one of his items He had been to Israel and the West Bank 13 times over two and a half years, always with Israeli government credentials, before being banned last June, he told Index. Some of his work focused on the rise in violence by state backed far right settlers against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.
Next to one link the police, from the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) district wrote that after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, Stefanelli “accuses Israel of creating apartheid in Judea and Samaria” an assessment that many journalists and academics, including Israeli rights groups, consider to be factual.
The police document on Stefanelli specified that police had recommended to population control authorities that they ban other foreign journalists based on reviews of their work, but their names were not released. Reporters sans frontières (RSF) – in a recent statement – referenced an Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism announcement that an entry ban had been imposed on Spanish freelancer Queralt Castillo. The reason for the ban was that entry to the country “will not be permitted for those who act against Israel, as part of its fight against antisemitism and the BDS (boycott,dDivestment and sanctions) movement.”
It is a dramatic deterioration for a country that once prided itself on being a bastion of media freedom, but which critics say has been shifting into authoritarianism and narrowing freedom of expression since Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in the 2022 election and formed the most right-wing coalition in Israeli history.
Shamai Glick, head of the right wing B’tsalmo NGO, welcomed the revelations of police scrutiny of journalists, saying “whoever incites against Israel must pay the heaviest price possible and if it means a ban on entry to Israel, then I am proud of this.”
By contrast, Stefanelli’s lawyer, Tamir Blank said Israel is now “one step away from having thought police.”
Among Israel’s previous steps against foreign and Israeli media freedom has been the ban since the Hamas attacks on entry to Gaza of foreign journalists to cover the war unless they are escorted by the IDF; the closure of the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera outlet on grounds of incitement, and an attempt by the government to undermine the financial viability of Haaretz, Israel’s leading opposition outlet. Most seriously, Israel stands accused of assassinating Gaza journalists, as previously reported by Index, and placing their West Bank counterparts in administrative detention without charges under grueling conditions. Israeli authorities say that Palestinians often use the cover of being media personnel to engage in terror-related activities.
But being caught red handed banning foreign journalists based on analysing their writings is a new development. Unless the court appeal by Stefanelli that was heard on 19 May succeeds in overturning the ban against him, such censorship is certain to widen given Israel’s interest in concealing the escalating abuses of its military regime and violent and illegal settlers in the West Bank. Their attacks – which drive Palestinians off their lands – have now reached record levels.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Sabine Haddad told Index that the Government Press Office(GPO) “did not object” to Stefanelli’s ban from the country. This was despite Stefanelli telling Index that the GPO had fully accredited him during each of his near monthly reporting trips to the West Bank since November 2023. The GPO, part of the prime minister’s office, also issues credentials that enable employed foreign correspondents to receive year long visas and pass through IDF checkpoints in the West Bank.
Contacted by Index, Stefanelli said of the ban: “They fear scrutiny, documentation and critical reporting. It’s a new wave of censorship that starts with freelance journalists and can spread.”
Prominent Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard said the banning of the journalists must be seen within the context of overall government efforts to limit the flow of information from the occupied territories. These have targeted humanitarian workers, aid groups and Israeli human rights organisations, he said. In order to register with Israeli authorities, humanitarian groups must now prove that they “don’t engage in delegitimisation of Israel” something that in practice means not criticising Israel, he said.
“The goal is to make it very difficult for there to be credible reporting to furnish the international discussion over Israel-Palestine,” Sfard said.
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