“When in 2014 we covered the Israel’s offensive in Gaza, we showed from the ground attacks on the ambulances, the whole neighborhood was destroyed… We were left speechless. This operation is more lethal. That’s why Israel didn’t let the press in.” These words of Yolanda Alvarezcurrent correspondent of Spanish Television in Asia-Pacific and former correspondent in the Middle East until he was dismissed in March 2015 due to “pressure” from the embassy of Israel in the management of RTVE, there is no doubt that the Government of Israel in Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an ‘information blackout’ at all levels of its massive bombing of the Gaza Strip in search of Hamas terrorists who carried out the massacre on October 7 and kidnapped more than 200 Israeli citizens, while preparing a the imminent invasion of the Strip.
https://twitter.com/yalvareztv/status/1716105414251565331?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The last incident of the Israeli army with the Spanish press was suffered this Sunday by the special envoy of TVE in the area, Oscar Mijallo, which was interrupted completely live by an Israeli soldier, forcing him to cut the connection and move to another place to continue doing his journalistic work. “Thank you to all of you who are interested in the incident with the Israeli army this morning. Miguel de la Fuente and Hugo Úbeda-Romero Alonso and I are good and after the expulsion we have no problem with the army,” the special envoy of TVE in the area published on the social network X.
Fran Sevilla, the experienced war reporter of Radio Nacional de España, remembers the “excellent coverage” that Yolanda Álvarez did inside the Gaza Strip during the Israeli bombardment in 2014. at the Israeli embassy in Madrid. “They are at other times,” said the reporter.
Miguel de la Fuente, the cameraman who accompanied Mijallo to the area for TVE, also assured that “it finally disappeared, they forced us to move to another place. And even if it is more difficult every day, here we will continue to say how things are.
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, Israeli authorities have banned foreign journalists from entering the Strip and currently only report from Israeli territory on the Gaza border. Only Palestinian photojournalists are currently carrying out reporting work from inside Gaza, describing the dire conditions experienced by its citizens and also the many civilian victims experienced by the heavy bombardment of Israeli planes.
