Foreign press group slams Israeli police for breaking journalist’s wrist

JERUSALEM: An international media association on Wednesday criticised an “unprovoked assault” by Israeli police on journalists in Jerusalem, which it said left a CNN producer with a fractured wrist.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) said police officers on Tuesday night “unnecessarily and aggressively repelled a group of journalists who were doing their jobs, documenting individuals who were praying outside the walls of the Old City”.

It said police detained several journalists, damaging photographic equipment and confiscating memory cards.

“During the assault, one Israeli officer fractured the wrist of a CNN producer,” the FPA said in a statement.

“None of this is acceptable,” added the association, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

An AFP photographer at the scene said a small group of journalists had been documenting Muslims trying to perform the evening Taraweeh prayers outside the Old City walls, when a group of police suddenly arrived and “violently attacked the worshippers and journalists covering the event.”

A foreign journalist told AFP that police “beat the CNN producer and some other journalists with batons,” adding that “at least one Palestinian was detained”.

AFP has asked Israeli police for comment on the incident.

Israeli authorities have closed holy sites in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem’s Old City for security reasons since the outbreak of the Middle East war on February 28.

The FPA called on the police to “immediately take action against the officers involved in this unprovoked assault and to act in the future to safeguard press freedoms, rather than trample upon them.”

In an X post, the Union of Journalists in Israel said it was “appalled” by the police conduct and urged the police commissioner to “immediately suspend the officers involved”.

An AFP journalist sits on the FPA board.