by To demand that the San Diego Union-Tribune officially denounce the murders of an Al Jazeera reporting crew in Gaza this week, around a hundred demonstrators gathered Tuesday night at the newspaper’s former headquarters.
Due to the Union-Tribune’s lack of an actual downtown office, the protest site was primarily symbolic.
An Israeli attack on a tent housing press in Gaza City claimed the lives of journalist Anas al-Sharif and a number of his colleagues. The assault happened late on Sunday outside the al-Shifa Hospital’s main gate in Gaza City.
Freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi, cameraman Momen Aliwa, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, and Al-Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif were all killed, along with correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh.
The San Diego for Palestine Coalition, which included local advocacy groups like the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Youth Movement, and Healthcare Workers for Palestine, among others, coordinated Tuesday’s demonstration.
The protest was planned by advocates in response to Israel’s planned ground invasion of Gaza City, which activists claim has increased intentional, targeted attacks on journalists covering the conflict in Gaza.
The journalist has consistently refuted the Israeli military’s accusation that al-Sharif was the leader of a Hamas cell, calling it unfounded.
Advocates and journalists, however, claim that Israel attacked al-Sharif because of his reporting, particularly after the reporter sobbed live while covering widespread malnutrition in the region.
As a number of speakers walked to the square to denounce the deaths of Anas al-Sharif and hundreds of other journalists in Gaza, demonstrators held banners and waved Palestinian flags outside the former U-T building at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and B Street.
We have seen a relentless, increasing genocide over the last two years. “We have witnessed slaughter every single day,” said Farida, a member of the San Diego chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement. As children, expectant mothers, educators, journalists, and teachers are killed in Gaza, we have witnessed the lowest echelons of humanity.
Farida also criticized the Union-Tribune for providing bland and passive coverage that she claimed was an engineering approval of Israel’s siege of Gaza, which lasted for almost two years. Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel, the war has claimed the lives of at least 62,6146 individuals, including 17,492 children, according to Al Jazeera.
Farida stated, “We are outside this building to inform the San Diego Union-Tribune that this is a global genocide, not just an Israeli one.” All the countries and companies who have ignored this atrocity and let it go on for almost two years are accomplices.
The bloodiest battle in history for journalists has been Israel’s attack on Gaza. Israeli assaults in Gaza have claimed the lives of at least 270 journalists and media professionals in the last 22 months.
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Since October 7, 2023, more journalists have been killed in Gaza than during the U.S. Civil conflict, World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Yugoslav Wars, and the U.S. conflict in Afghanistan combined, according to the Brown University sCosts of War project.
Those who attended the event were aware of those sobering figures and stated that it is impossible to ignore the U.S. involvement given San Diego’s close proximity to the U.S. military and its numerous auxiliary industries related to the armed forces.
According to Teresa Ortega, a City Heights activist who came out to express her support for Palestinian journalists, wearing a press vest is basically a metaphor for donning a funeral garment in Palestine.
This is a war crime, and in order for journalists to present the truth, we must safeguard them. The truth would only be suppressed if there was something to conceal.
Additionally, Reverend RJ Lucchesi expressed his dissatisfaction with what he considers to be a local and national failure of Western news media.
From the beginning, legacy media, including the Union Tribune, have been fully complicit in this atrocity. According to Lucchesi, you only hear one side of this genocide, and it is not the side of justice, liberation, or the people.
All of it is done with full cooperation from the Union-Tribune. They have not given any pro-Palestine voices a platform.
The paper came under fire last spring after it deleted an opinion piece written by a 21-year-old UCSD anthropology major and Jewish Voice for Peace member who had been asked by the organization’s opinion board to write a piece expressing Jewish students’ sympathy for the Palestinian cause. A week later, the op-ed was put back on its website after community outcry, but charges of bias remain.
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In addition, Jewish Voice for Peace issued the following statement, citing the removal from last spring and urging the Union Tribune to denounce the act of press targeting.
As Jews and moral beings, we are aware that media outlets such as the Union Tribune support Israel’s homicidal war apparatus. Local Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish voices, such as those from our Jewish Voice for Peace organization, are silenced by the UT.
We continue to urge the Union-Tribune to acknowledge the humanity of Palestinians, truthfully report on Israel’s war crimes, and demand an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people in the wake of Israel’s recent murder of five Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza who were courageously reporting the realities of life under a genocidal siege.
Farida took the microphone once again to speak to the gathering as Tuesday’s demonstration came to a solemn end after almost two hours of chanting and speeches.
The lies that this aggressive settler colony has attempted to spread must be carefully considered, she said. portraying this spouse, parent, journalist, and Palestinian as a terrorist. However, we are aware of the true source of terrorism. Furthermore, it is not found in heroes, doctors, journalists, parents, children, or innocent bystanders. We will never forget Anas because he was a hero.
A request for comment from the U-T has not yet received a response.
