Posted in Announcements

AP statement on comment about Gaza journalists

, by Lauren Easton

The Associated Press issued this statement on Saturday in response to a comment that Israel's Channel 12 TV attributed to Israeli Military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, saying that AP journalists drank coffee with Hamas electronics experts in the cafeteria of the building that housed AP's former bureau in Gaza:

This unsubstantiated allegation attributed to the Israeli military's chief of staff is patently false. There was not even a cafeteria in the building.

Such baseless claims jeopardize the safety of AP journalists.

AP continues to call for an independent investigation into the destruction of the building housing our Gaza bureau so that the facts are known.

As we have said repeatedly, we had no indication of a Hamas presence in the building, nor were we warned of any such possible presence before the airstrike. We do not know what the Israeli evidence shows, and we want to know.