A nongovernmental media organization expressed concern on Saturday about reports that undercover Israeli operatives are posing as photojournalists during Palestinian demonstrations against Israeli policies in Jerusalem.
In a statement, Awad Awad, a photojournalist working with the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA), said that this concern arose from reports they received from residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood Ras Al-Amoud.
Awad said Ras Al-Amoud residents told MADA that they saw Israeli agents carrying cameras and disguised as press photographers on Thursday and Friday. The same agents, the residents said, arrested young men who participated in the demonstration.
Speaking to Ma’an on Saturday, residents of the area reported identical incidents. Witnesses said they saw Israelis dressed as photographers seize “several” young male protesters.
Ras Al-Amoud saw some of the fiercest clashes between stone-throwing protesters and Israeli riot police. Reported intrusions by Israeli settlers into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, have sparked over a week of demonstrations.
A photo published on the website of the New York Times also showed plainclothes Israeli officers seizing a Palestinian man during a demonstration in East Jerusalem.
In its statement, MADA said that Israeli operatives disguising themselves as photographers could endanger the lives of actual photojournalists.
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