From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield. And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The most

recent fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas, now two weeks old, is like all modern

wars, partly a battle of images. Dead and wounded children in Gaza, military funerals and fear in Israel. One image you

haven't seen anywhere, however, is that of U.S. reporters on the ground in Gaza. Close to 300

foreign nationals were allowed out of Gaza, but no journalists were allowed in. Israel continues

to reject international calls for a return to free press.

I told the Vice Prime Minister about that today.

I said, look, why aren't you allowing journalists to go into Gaza?

And he said, why do you want to go in?

And I said, look, we're journalists.

This is what we do.

We need to report on the situation.

They're actually surprisingly open about why they're not allowing journalists inside.

They say they don't want too much information coming out of Gaza.

The Israeli military has barred foreign correspondence from entering the Gaza Strip,

despite an Israeli Supreme Court ruling mandating at least limited access for journalists.

Ethan Brunner is Jerusalem bureau chief for the New York Times.

He says, in order to understand the current crackdown on the press, you have to go back to the summer of 2006.

That's right.

In 2006, in the war against Hisbalah in Lebanon, the Israeli and foreign media had sort of the run of the

place. People were constantly talking to soldiers about their lack of good guns and decent food

and enough water. There were mid-level commanders going live on radio talking about what they thought ought to happen.

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