Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) calls on Israel to halt attacks on journalists after assault on AA photographer

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Israeli authorities to "immediately cease attacking journalists" in the aftermath of a violent assault on Anadolu photographer Mustafa Alkharouf in East Jerusalem.

"The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply shocked by reports and footage of Israeli security forces severely beating Anadolu Agency photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf and calls for transparency and timeliness by Israeli authorities as they investigate and hold those involved in attacking the journalist to account," it said in a statement on Friday.

"The physical attack on Mustafa Alkharouf is not a singular incident. It belongs to a pattern of physical attacks, assaults, and threats by Israeli soldiers and settlers on journalists reporting from the West Bank and Israel that have dramatically increased since October," CPJ's Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said in the statement.

"CPJ calls on Israeli authorities to immediately cease attacking journalists, hold accountable those involved in these attacks, and provide much-needed protection to journalists reporting in Israel and the West Bank," he added.

Alkharouf was hospitalized after being assaulted by Israeli forces while covering Friday prayers in East Jerusalem.

The incident unfolded as a group of Palestinians gathered in the Wadi al-Joz neighborhood near the Al-Aqsa Mosque for prayers amid ongoing restrictions imposed by the Israeli army on Friday prayers at the mosque.

Video footage of the incident depicts an Israeli soldier striking Alkharouf with a rifle and subsequently throwing him to the ground, where he was subjected to severe beating, including kicks to the head.