Channel 14 Reporter Harassed While Covering Voting at Haifa Polling Station
Northern correspondent Gal Tobi says a man crowded her, touched her equipment and disrupted a live broadcast at a polling station in Haifa's Denya neighborhood.
By News Media House Staff ·
Gal Tobi, the northern correspondent for Israel's Channel 14, said she was verbally assaulted and harassed on Tuesday morning while reporting on voting at a polling station in Haifa's Denya neighborhood. She described the episode to Walla.
Tobi had come to the site on her own, without a cameraman. According to her account, a man approached, stood uncomfortably close and touched her equipment, including while she was on a live broadcast.
She said the man accused her of filming people in the background. Tobi explained that she was standing in a public space, and she changed the camera angle so that only she would appear on screen. Even so, she said, the man kept interfering with her work.
"Even though I accommodated him so as not to offend anyone, he stood very close to me and harassed me," she said.
Tobi said the man had come with two other people and later told his companions, "We don't want Channel 14." She also said she heard remarks against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the incident. Other people at the polling station stepped in and tried to defend her, she said.
"They started acting like bullies, disrupted my broadcast and touched my equipment," Tobi recounted. "I was verbally attacked and harassed," she added.
The incident left her visibly distressed, and she broke down in tears. She said she and her Channel 14 colleagues had faced similar situations while carrying out their routine reporting.
Speaking about the incident during a Channel 14 broadcast, Tobi made clear she would keep working. "We'll get through this and continue bringing you the voices from the field. We won't pay attention to people like that. Not everyone here is like that," she said.
Ofer Winter, chairman of the People of Israel party, condemned the reported harassment. "We are all brothers here! We must put an end to attacks by one brother against another," he said.
Winter urged law enforcement authorities to act, describing the case as the latest in a series of similar incidents involving journalists and media crews. "There is no place for this violence in Israeli society, and any attack on media outlets doing their jobs must be condemned clearly and unequivocally," he said.
Originally published by News Media House · Source: The Jerusalem Post
