Israeli authorities have detained an American journalist after he posted a report on YouTube showing impact damage from Iran’s Oct. 1 missile barrage that the Israelis had not acknowledged. Jeremy Loffredo, who is based in New York City and reports for the Grayzone news website, traveled to Israel after Oct. 1 with the apparent intent of uncovering the truth about how much damage the Iranian strike had actually caused. In the video, posted on Oct. 6, he shows damage near the IDF’s major Nevatim air base in the Negev Desert in central Israel and in the vicinity of Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, damage which he said the Israelis had not acknowledged. Loffredo shows the latest videos of the Iran attacks on Nevatim that had been taken by Israelis and also by local Bedouins. The Bedouins, who unlike Jewish Israeli citizens, told him they have no bomb shelters or other heavy infrastructure where they could take refuge from missile and rocket attacks. Two young Bedouins took him to see where part of an Iranian missile had fallen, a quarter-mile from their village and a quarter-mile from the Nevatim airbase.
On Oct. 8, Loffredo and four other journalists, along with their driver, had been arrested by Israeli troops at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank, and detained, charged with crimes that included aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy. One of the journalists, a Russian-Israeli calling himself Andrey X who was later released, posted a harrowing account of their brutal treatment at the hands of the Israelis, which included the confiscation of their phones and other personal devices at gunpoint.
The Grayzone reported that Israel’s case against Loffredo collapsed after a Ynet journalist testified that his own article featuring Loffredo’s full report had cleared military censorship. “Yet Israel won’t let Loffredo go home, as it wants more time to digitally strip search his devices.” Although the Grayzone’s Oct. 11 statement was issued before Loffredo was released from jail, he does remain held in Israel itself. Grayzone’s statement concluded:
“The Grayzone unequivocally rejects these outrageous accusations from Israeli police. We stand by Jeremy’s legitimate reporting. The claim that Loffredo and The Grayzone represent Israel’s enemy in wartime merely suggests that the Israeli government views the American people and free press as a legitimate target. We represent no one else. We will fight these charges, and ask that you contact the State Department and urge them to act in defense of their citizen detained in Israel. The U.S. has an obligation to defend its journalists who are merely adhering to their ethical obligation to inform the public of pertinent facts.”
“The detention formed the latest episode of Israel’s years-long assault on journalists, which has escalated significantly during the genocide in Gaza,” reported Novara Media, an independent, not-for-profit media organization based in Britain. “According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), over 140 journalists and media workers have been killed since 7 October, more than in any other conflict on record. At least 69 more are currently detained in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel: the Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ) claims ‘Israeli authorities now hold the global record for arresting the most journalists per capita.’”
Novara Media maintains that no legacy news media have reported on Loffredo’s arrest and detention.
