Anadolu Agency calls on international agencies to show solidarity

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's leading news provider on Wednesday called on other international news agencies to show solidarity against violent attacks by Israeli police on journalists in Jerusalem.

"While carrying out their professional duties, four of our reporters sustained serious injuries. Our journalists chronicling the events on the ground while abiding by the principles of journalism are facing a frightening situation," said Serdar Karagoz, the director general of Anadolu Agency, in a letter to other news agencies.

The letter was sent to the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA), Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA), Alliance of Mediterranean News Agencies (AMAN), and Association of the Balkan News Agencies – Southeast Europe (ABNA-SE).

Karagoz urged the agency’s international colleagues to stand in solidarity with it as the agency carries out its basic journalistic duties "in these trying times."

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.

Anadolu Agency is a strong defender of the right to provide and receive information. The agency believes it is a basic human right to let journalists carry out their activities freely and in safety.

- Targeted on the job

Turgut Alp Boyraz, the agency's Middle East news editor, was shot twice by Israeli police on 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 last Friday while covering a raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque's Haram al-Sharif in occupied East Jerusalem. This Monday he was shot in the leg with two rubber bullets in another Israeli police raid on the flashpoint mosque.

He was one of four Anadolu Agency journalists attacked by Israeli police.

Anadolu Agency correspondent Esat Firat, who has worked for the agency since 2016, and two photographers were targeted on Monday while covering Israeli security forces' attacks on worshipers at Al-Aqsa.

Fayez Abu Rumaila, an Anadolu Agency photojournalist in occupied East Jerusalem since 2018, was brutally 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.

AlKharouf said Israeli forces pushed them outside Al-Aqsa Mosque, adding that when he left Jerusalem's Old City and headed towards his vehicle near the wall of Al-Rahma Cemetery, he found a medic injured by shrapnel from a stun grenade.