OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, March 31 (IslamOnline) – Israeli occupation soldiers have forcefully entered the building which houses the Al Jazeera satellite channel in Ramallah, the station reported Sunday, March 31.

Israeli tanks surrounded the building and broke through the metal gateways and occupation forces are currently searching the building.

Al Jazeera also reported Sunday that several reporting teams elsewhere in Ramallah were attacked and a cameraman was injured.

“Whether or not they wear a bullet proof jacket, media personnel must raise their hands to their sides to prove to the Israeli soldiers who stop them that they are only carrying a pen, paper and camera so that they are allowed to pass.

“Sometimes the soldiers, who are staying inside Palestinian homes which they occupied, still don’t allow them to pass. As you walk through the cities which are under siege, you have to keep uttering to yourself the shahada (the proclamation which Muslims must utter before death).” This is how Nael Nakhla, a reporter in the occupied territories described to IslamOnline the status of all media people covering Israeli atrocities.

“Silence has covered the alleys and streets of the two cities and you can only hear Israeli gunshots every now and then inside the homes which they forcefully enter or they break down the internal walls by blowing them down with missiles attached to their rifles,” he said.

Nakhla added that the Israeli soldiers forcefully entered the media office of the Fatah movement which lies in the Nitche building and where Sakhr Habash, a member of the central committee for Fatah movement was situated and have destroyed all its contents.

The office was destroyed and the occupation soldiers entered three other media offices in the same building.

Rashed Hillal, a correspondent for the Palestinian Satellite Channel in Ramallah said that the Israeli forces broke through the office of the Voice of Palestine radio station and all its employees were abducted and taken to an unknown destination. This happened after the station’s building was completely destroyed.

Media reports have said that the Israeli forces have occupied the seven-floor Israa building, that houses media and civil organizations and a human rights organization.

The occupation forces do not only target Arab and Palestinian reporters but also attack those from other nationalities. Four Turkish journalists have been abducted, and taken away from a media center in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Speaking to Turkish news agency Anatolia, Mitti Jobokjo, a Turkish correspondent who was abducted by Israeli forces, said that Israeli soldiers forcefully entered a room in the media center they were in, searched them and confiscated their passports, refusing to allow them to leave the building.

The Israeli soldiers opened fire on the media center and had it under their control Friday evening, claiming they were fired at from inside the building.

Mahmoud Khalouf, a correspondent for the Palestinian News Agency said that the Israeli forces threw him and other correspondents for Arab and foreign agencies out of Ramallah. He said it has become very dangerous to stand near any window because of the soldiers’ bullets.

Khalouf added that the lives of the reporters as well as 280,000 Palestinians living in Ramallah are in danger and he asked all correspondents not to be manipulated by Israeli pressures and to insist on portraying the real truth.

In addition, the Israeli army occupied and shut down 10 other local television and radio stations, destroying their contents. The TV stations include Al Watan, Amwaj, Al Sharq, Al Quds Educational channel, and Radio Palestine, while the radio stations included Al Manar, Ajyal, Amwaj, the Voice of Peace and Love and the Voice of Palestine. Khalouf stated that the occupation forces attacked the cameraman of Al Sharq TV station, Rubhi al Koubri, wounding his hand while he was taking footage of the Palestinian presidential headquarters.

Al Watan correspondent, Munzer Hamdan, said that “The occupation forces transmitted on the stations which they occupied pornographic programs and movies.”

He added that this was confirmed through the tens of calls that he received from the Palestinian people adding that the offices of international news agencies were also attacked and their contents were confiscated such as Agence France-Presse, Reuters, the Associated Press and the German news agency.

In addition, the media offices of Abu Dhabi, Oman, Saudi, Kuwait and Al Manar TV stations were also forcefully entered and two satellite transmitting companies Link and Ramatan were closed and vandalized to prevent them from broadcasting live footage of what is really happening in Palestine.

Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF, or Reporters Without Borders) published a report in July 2001 saying that 75 per cent of the reporters who were targeted by the Israeli forces during the intifada were Palestinians. This however, has changed and all media personnel are now targets.

Palestinian reporters have a double risk as they not only have press cards like foreign reporters but they are also being accused of encouraging “violence” and ae treated with suspicion and have to face the aggression of the Israeli forces.

Israeli settlers also hate reporters in general and those of them who are Palestinian in specific The settles do not hesitate to attack reporters even in front of the Israeli soldiers.

The foreign reporters are not better off from the Palestinians and Arabs and the murder of Italian photographer Rafael Chirello is an example of this.

Nile TV cameraman Carlos Handal was shot in the neck and is now in a critical condition.

Egyptian reporter Tarek Abdel Jaber and another French correspondent were also shot during the incursion in Ramallah in mid March.

Additional reporting by Maha Abdel Hadi, IOL Palestine correspondent