On June 5, Israeli police officers arrested Givara Budeiri, the veteran Al-Jazeera correspondent and Jerusalmite, when she was covering demonstrations in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The demonstrations also commemorated the 54th anniversary of Naksa day, which is when Israel occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula.
The police officers initially asked to see her identity card, but then refused to let her collect it from her car. She was handcuffed and violently pushed, and her team’s recording camera was destroyed.
She was released after several hours, on the condition that she does not visit Sheikh Jarrah for 15 days.
This is part of Israel’s systematic targeting of media in the oPt. It has also arrested at least another 13 journalists reporting on the Sheikh Jarrah protests, including Hazem Nasser (a Al-Ghad TV cameraman), who was detained on May 12 and the journalists Zeina Al-Halawani and Wahbi Makiya, who were detained on May 28.
It also destroyed dozens of media offices during its recent military assault on the Gaza Strip, including the May 15 bombing that destroyed the al-Jalaa residential tower, the main AP (Associated Press) and Al-Jazeera headquarters in the territory. Four days later, it refused to allow foreign reporters to pass through the Erez checkpoint.
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