Israeli Bombs Destroy Gaza Media Center; AP, Al-Jazeera, Others Taken Out

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Common Dreams staff

Smoke billows as an Israeli air bomb is dropped on the Jala Tower during an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, on Saturday, May 15, 2021. Israel's air force targeted the 11-floor Jala Tower housing Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television and the Associated Press news agency among many other media outlets. (Photo by Mahmud Hams / AFP via Getty Images)

Israel destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of The Associated Press, Al-Jazeera and other media outlets on Saturday, the latest step by Israel to silence reporting.

Israeli bombs destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of The Associated Press, Al-Jazeera and other media outlets on Saturday, the latest step by Israel to silence reporting from Gaza amid its military bombardment. The Israeli air raid totally demolished the structure.

The 11-storey residential building called Al-Jalaa has now collapsed. pic.twitter.com/VUFxxJCuW3

— Arwa Ibrahim (@arwaib) May 15, 2021

Live Al Jazeera video showed the 11-story al-Jalaa building, which also houses a number of residences and other offices, crashing to the ground after being bombed as dust and debris flew into the air.

The strike came just hours after another Israeli bombing of a densely populated refugee camp in Gaza City killed at least eight Palestinian children and two women from an extended family, in the deadliest single strike of Israel's current assault.

AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt has released the following statement:

We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza. They have long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there. We received a warning that the building would be hit.

We are seeking information from the Israeli government and are engaged with the U.S. State Department to try to learn more.

This is an incredibly disturbing development. We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life. A dozen AP journalists and freelancers were inside the building and thankfully we were able to evacuate them in time.

The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.

That's why Israel bombed the AP's HQ. ⤵️ https://t.co/ACKnkTuvwZ

— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) May 15, 2021

Al Jazeera’s Safwat al-Kahlout, reporting from Gaza City, said he had worked at the building for 11 years, and often did live reports from its roof.

“I have been covering lots of events from this building,” he said. “We have lots of good memories with our colleagues”.

It was not immediately made clear why the building was targeted by Israel.

“Now, no one can understand the feeling of the people whose homes have been destroyed by such kind of air attacks,” al-Kahlout said. “It’s really difficult to wake up one day and then you realize that your office is not there with all the career experiences, memories that you’ve had.”

Israel targeting media sources is so the world can't see Israel's war crimes led by the apartheid-in-chief Netanyahu. It's so the world can't see the killing of babies, children and their parents.
It's so the world can't see Palestinians being massacred. https://t.co/AvDp3IuxUA

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) May 15, 2021

If journalistic solidarity means anything whatsoever, it should mean, at the bare minimum, unreservedly speaking out about Israel wiping out the building housing media organisations such as Associated Press and Al-Jazeera pic.twitter.com/0rBdIt7dhU

— Owen Jones ???? (@OwenJones84) May 15, 2021

BREAKING: Israeli warplanes pound the Gaza Strip, killing at least 8 children in a refugee camp and flattening a high-rise building housing the offices of international media outlets as Hamas unleashes new barrage of rockets targeting central Israel. https://t.co/cLlct5rirp

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 15, 2021

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Since the overpaid presstitutes will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality. After systematically corrupting the entire media, thereby hijacking the mainstream narrative, corporate power, led by the US, has practically killed democracy wherever it managed to survive, including in the US itself, easily one of the most heavily propagandised nations in history. The consequences of this disgraceful situation can be seen everywhere, and that’s why the fight for the truth has never been so vital. We stand on the edge of an ecological abyss precipitated by a cancerous industrial system devoid of any moral restraints. Furthermore, dripping hypocrisy, the West has unilaterally declared war on China, Russia and Iran, which threatens a nuclear confrontation, plus other nations like Venezuela or Cuba that also dare to resist the tyrannical diktats emanating from Washington. It’s clear that war, ceaseless propaganda, and the immiseration of the working class is the chosen solution of the empire managers to the capitalist system’s incurable crisis, a crisis rendered all the more intractable by the computer revolution which has only deepened capital’s legendary “overproduction” contradiction.

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