The army initially was set to allow eight reporters to cross into Gaza on Friday, under a compromise engineered by the Supreme Court, then postponed it to Monday. But the plan was abandoned as combat intensified around the Erez checkpoint, the main civilian crossing from Israel into Gaza.
The Red Cross aborted the evacuation of 33 foreign passport holders from Gaza. Its bus turned back just 500 yards from the border because of the fighting and an obstacle in the road, Austrian Ambassador Michael Rendi said. Among the passengers were Austrians, Germans, Canadians and Filipinos, most of them married to Palestinians.
Dozens of trucks carrying food and humanitarian aid entered Gaza through a separate cargo crossing farther south.
Daniel Seaman, director of Israel's Government Press Office, said opening the Erez crossing would endanger its staff. But Seaman also asserted the absence of foreign journalists was good for Israel because the Hamas militants who rule Gaza fabricate coverage to make Israel look bad.
"And they get away with it because of the unprofessional cooperation of the foreign press, which takes questionable reports at face value without checking," he said.
Reginald Dale, director of the Transatlantic Media Network and a senior fellow with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Israel's decision to keep out foreign journalists was both practical and ideological.
Military commanders in democracies such as Israel and the U.S. know they are accountable to the press, but they also know the risk of negative public opinion, he said. "They have to establish some sort of balance and it's not easy."
Dale said Israeli officials probably worried about the impact of a foreign reporter being killed or taken hostage by militants or about Hamas learning military plans and positions through news coverage.
He said he found it unlikely Israel expected to limit coverage of civilian deaths, noting that "the Palestinians are sending out videos of casualties."
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