STATEMENT ON ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE ON AP AND AL-JAZEERA COLLEAGUES BUILDING IN GAZA

In common with our partners The Committee to Protect Journalists, and our colleagues the FPA in Israel, The Foreign Press Association of the US strongly condemns the Israeli airstrike on the building that housed our colleagues of the AP and Al-Jazeera among others.  There is no justification for the destruction of an entire residential building which also housed media organizations reporting on the conflict. This was clearly a calculated assault on the media and as AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said, “The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today." It is a reasonable conclusion that this was one purpose of the raid.
 
We would also be remiss if we did not express our support and sympathy for the civilians without press passes, whose homes were destroyed and lives put at risk because of the alleged identity of their neighbors.