Israel-Gaza war
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 68 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7
Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 6:47 p.m. GMT
The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused the Israeli military of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza, as the death toll among media workers is the highest in any recent conflict.
New York-based CPJ said at least 68 journalists and other media workers have been killed in Gaza, Israel and southern Lebanon since Hamas' cross-border attack on October 7 and the subsequent Israeli attack.
“More journalists were killed in the first ten weeks of the Israel-Gaza war than ever in a single country in an entire year,” it said.
“CPJ is particularly concerned about an apparent pattern of attacks on journalists and their families by the Israeli military. In at least one case, a journalist was killed in a non-combat area while apparently wearing press badges. In at least two other cases, journalists reported receiving threats from Israeli officials and Israel Defense Forces officers before their family members were killed.”
The CPJ called on Israel to “end the long-standing pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF.”
61 of the journalists killed were Palestinian and three were Lebanese. Additionally, four Israeli journalists were among 1,200 people, mostly civilians, killed by Hamas in the October attack.
Israel has killed at least 20,000 more Palestinians during the current war, about 1% of Gaza's population, including more than 8,000 children.
The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders warned that “journalism in Gaza is on the verge of being wiped out due to Israel's refusal to heed calls to protect media personnel.”
“Journalists have no safe haven there and no way to leave the country. They are killed one by one. “Since October 7, the Palestinian territory has been subjected to a virtual eradication of journalism,” it said.
The CPJ said there was a “pattern of journalists in Gaza reporting that they received threats and then had their family members killed.” It said the 90-year-old father of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his home after his son received multiple threats.
“The journalist told Al Jazeera that he received several calls from Israeli army officers instructing him to stop reporting and leave the northern Gaza Strip. “In addition, he received voice notes on WhatsApp disclosing his location,” it said.
CPJ previously noted that an Israeli airstrike killed eight members of photojournalist Yasser Qudih's family, after a report by pro-Israel advocacy group HonestReporting suggested that Qudih and three other Gaza-based photographers were already reporting on the Hamas attack Israel knew. The Israeli Foreign Ministry retweeted a claim that “AP, CNN, NY Times and Portal embedded journalists with Hamas terrorists in the October 7 massacre.” A tweet Former Israeli UN ambassador and MP Danny Danon called for their “elimination”.
“Major media outlets, including Portal, have denied the claims,” the CPJ said. “HonestReporting subsequently retracted the allegations, but its report prompted the Israeli prime minister's office to tweet that the photographers were accomplices in 'crimes against humanity' and Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz to say they should be treated as terrorists .”
Earlier this month, Al Jazeera cameraman Samir Abudaqa was injured in a drone strike and trapped in a UN school. When people tried to save Abudaqa and take him for treatment, they too were shot. He died of his injuries a few hours later.
Human Rights Watch and other groups determined that an IDF attack that killed Portal journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others in southern Lebanon was likely a deliberate IDF attack on civilians.
Israel denies targeting journalists and says it is only targeting Hamas.
Jodie Ginsberg, the CPJ president, called on Israel to be more transparent about the orders soldiers receive when dealing with media figures.
“It is difficult for us to truly understand Israel's position. They say they are not journalists, but we have this deadly pattern. Since they will not publish their rules of engagement, it is difficult for us to know under what conditions they view journalists who are obviously civilians and should never be the target of a war,” she said.
In May, CPJ published a report documenting a “deadly pattern” of Israeli forces killing journalists even before the recent conflict in Gaza. The group investigated the deaths of 20 journalists at the hands of the IDF over the past two decades and “found a pattern of Israeli response that appears to be aimed at evading responsibility.”
“Israel has never brought a soldier to trial for the intentional or unintentional killing of a journalist,” the CPJ said.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said earlier this week that they had seen “no evidence that Israel is intentionally targeting journalists.” But Ginsberg said the US had not held Israel accountable for killing journalists in the past.
“Last year there was the murder of Shareen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera journalist who was a US citizen, and again we really saw no accountability. She was killed in what appeared to be a targeted attack because she was shot in the neck between her helmet and her press jacket,” she said.
“We really haven’t seen any aggressive action from the US pushing for an independent investigation or holding Israel accountable. The U.S. can do much more to hold Israel accountable and, in particular, to investigate whether or not U.S. weapons were used in these killings.”
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