By Gozde Bayar
ANKARA (AA) – The Alliance of Mediterranean News Agencies (AMAN) on Sunday expressed solidarity with Anadolu Agency following violent attacks by Israeli police on its staffers in Jerusalem.
“Concerned about the safety of journalists in the exercise of their duties, the Alliance of Mediterranean News Agencies stands by Anadolu Agency, whose four reporters were seriously injured during the recent events in Jerusalem,” Fakhreddine Beldi, the president of AMAN, said in a letter sent to Anadolu Agency Director General Serdar Karagoz.
“The Alliance regrets that once again journalists are the target of violence while exercising their profession, that is the right to inform, a right affirmed in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” it read.
Anadolu Agency, founded in 1920, is a leading global news agency operating across the world. It serves subscribers in more than 100 countries, reaching 6,000 news outlets worldwide in 13 languages every day.
It is a strong defender of the right to provide and receive information. The agency believes it is a fundamental human right to let journalists carry out their activities freely and in safety.
- Targeted on the job
Turgut Alp Boyraz, the agency's MENA news editor, was shot twice by Israeli police in two separate incidents while covering recent events.
Boyraz, a veteran journalist with eight years of experience with the agency, was shot in the foot with a plastic bullet on May 7 while covering a raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque's Haram al-Sharif in occupied East Jerusalem. On May 10, he was shot in the leg with two rubber bullets in another Israeli police raid on the flashpoint mosque.
Correspondent Esat Firat, who has worked for the agency since 2016, and two photographers were also targeted in the past and ongoing week.
Fayez Abu Rumaila, an Anadolu Agency photojournalist in occupied East Jerusalem since 2018, was attacked by Israeli occupation forces while covering clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.
Mustafa AlKharouf, another Anadolu Agency photojournalist who has covered Jerusalem since 2017, said he was hit by a rubber bullet in the chest while providing aid to an injured medic.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip in airstrikes since May 10, killing at least 192 Palestinians.
Tensions spread from East Jerusalem to Gaza after Palestinian resistance groups there vowed to retaliate against recent Israeli assaults on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.