Ouagadougou: The General Supervisor of Official Media of the State of Palestine, Minister Ahmed Assaf, opened this Tuesday, February 27, 2024, the virtual training course on ‘The Challenges of Verification and Information Collection in war zones (Palestine as a model)’, organized by the Union of News Agencies of the Countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (UNA) in cooperation with the Viory Video news agency.
The session saw the participation of more than 200 media professionals from member news agencies and media outlets from OIC countries.
Minister Assaf inaugurated the work of the session with a speech in which he expressed his thanks to the union of press agencies of the countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and to the Viory agency for the organization of this session.
He stressed that the choice of the theme of the course is very important at this time, especially in light of this Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the genocidal war whic
h has affected the Palestinian people of all categories, specifically journalists.
Minister Assaf revealed that since the start of the recent Israeli war in the Gaza Strip less than 5 months ago until today, more than 120 Palestinian journalists have been directly killed.
Assaf pointed out that “official Palestinian media presented 11 martyrs, most of whom were targeted along with their families, bringing the number to more than 100 martyrs among journalists working in official media and their families.”
He stressed that ‘attacks on journalists by Israel have not started since October 7, since the headquarters of the Palestinian Radio and Television Corporation in Ramallah was destroyed more than 20 years ago by planes. and tanks.
He called on all international media institutions to raise their voices ‘to denounce these crimes, punish the criminals of Palestinian journalists and work to allow Palestinian journalists to work in safety, as is the case everywhere in the world.’
For his part, Acting Director
General of the Union of News Agencies of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (UNA), Mohammad bin Abd Rabbo Al-Yami, explained that the course is part of the efforts of the Union to shed light on the difficulties encountered by journalists in general and Palestinian journalists in the exercise of their professional duty.
He added that this course is part of the Union’s efforts to combat disinformation in the media and provide journalists with the skills necessary to identify false content and combat its spread.
Al-Yami paid tribute to the sacrifices of Palestinian journalists and their efforts to convey the truth.
He expressed his sincere gratitude to the Viory agency for its desire to share its experiences with the news agencies of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries.
Speaking live from the southern Gaza town of Rafah, Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) correspondent Sami Abu Salem reviewed a number of challenges facing Palestinian journalists face in the exercise of their professional duty.
He highlighted that one of the most important challenges is the inability of journalists to settle in a specific area, emphasizing that on a personal level he has been moved more than 7 times.
He stressed that Wafa Agency focuses its work on accuracy and relies on information released by official authorities, led by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, to publish the number of victims and martyrs.
Palestinian journalist Fouad Abu Jarada also spoke of the difficulties encountered by Palestinian journalists in the field, in particular reconciling their family and professional lives, as well as the difficulties of traveling and accessing the Internet.
Next, Mary Saclario, director of Viory’s verification unit, and Zois Beckius, editor-in-chief of Viory, gave a presentation on “The challenges of verification and information collection in war zones”, with a focus on the current situation in Gaza, where they discussed security mechanisms and crew vetting.
They also discussed a number of challenges that the Viory
team faced in carrying out their work in Gaza, where they were exposed to injuries, but they nevertheless continued their work despite the difficulties and despite the loss of members of their family.
They discussed a number of technical tools used to verify photos and videos to ensure they belong to the sites where they are believed to have been filmed
Source: Burkina Information Agency