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An international media association has denounced the Israeli government\u2019s continued refusal to lift its ban on unrestricted media access to Gaza, despite the ceasefire<\/span> in the embattled enclave.<\/p>\n The Foreign Press Association (FPA) issued a statement on Tuesday expressing its \u201cprofound disappointment\u201d with the government, which had told the Supreme Court two days earlier that the ban should be maintained due to \u201csecurity reasons\u201d.<\/p>\n Israel, which has barred foreign journalists from independently entering Gaza since the war started in October 2023, was responding to an FPA petition seeking free and unfettered access for foreign journalists to the devastated territory.<\/p>\n The organisation, which represents journalists from international news organisations working in Israel, Gaza and the occupied West Bank, pledged to submit a \u201crobust response\u201d to the court in the coming days.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of presenting a plan for allowing journalists into Gaza independently and letting us work alongside our brave Palestinian colleagues<\/span>, the government has decided once again to lock us out. This comes even when a ceasefire is now in place,\u201d the FPA statement said.<\/p>\n The Israeli government, which has allowed only a limited number of journalists embedded with its military to work in Gaza on a case-by-case basis, said its court submission was \u201cbased on the position of the defence establishment\u201d, noting that allowing journalists into the enclave could hinder the search for the remains of the last Israeli captive.<\/p>\n The FPA submitted its petition to the court in September 2024. The court has granted several extensions to the government.<\/p>\n Last month, it set January 4 as a final deadline for the government to present a plan for media access to Gaza.<\/p>\n The International Federation of Journalists has reported that Palestine was the deadliest place<\/span> to work as a journalist in 2025, reporting that 56 Palestinian media professionals were killed over the course of the year.<\/p>\n Since the war broke out, nearly 300 journalists and media workers<\/span> have been killed in Gaza, according to Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named after Al Jazeera\u2019s veteran correspondent\u00a0Shireen Abu Akleh<\/span>, who was killed in the occupied West Bank in 2022.<\/p>\n