Media freedom watchdog condemns Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza. Israel-Palestine conflict news
CPJ says that when it comes to killing journalists, Israeli forces continue to act with complete impunity.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned Israel’s killing of four Palestinian journalists in Gaza last week as Israeli forces stepped up bombardment of the besieged area.
The international community has failed to hold Israel accountable for its actions amid rising deaths of journalists and civilians in Gaza, the United States-based watchdog said in a statement on Monday.
“At least 95 journalists and media workers are expected to be killed around the world by 2024,” said CPJ CEO Jody Ginsberg.
“Israel is responsible for two-thirds of those deaths and yet it continues to act with complete impunity when it comes to the killing of journalists and its attacks on the media.”
The comments come a day after Israeli forces killed Ahmed al-Louah, a 39-year-old Palestinian journalist who worked as a cameraman for Al Jazeera in the Nussirat refugee camp.
Recently, Israel had also killed journalists Mohammad Balousha, Mohammad Jaber al-Qarnawi and Iman Shanti.
Hours before Shanti and her husband and children were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Wednesday, the Palestinian journalist wrote on social media: “Is it possible that we are still alive?”
Israel has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials. It has also leveled large parts of the enclave and imposed a suffocating blockade, leading to deadly starvation across the region.
UN experts and rights groups have accused Israel of carrying out genocide in Gaza.
With no foreign journalists allowed to work in Gaza, Palestinian journalists have been the only witnesses describing the atrocities to the outside world. And, rights advocates argue, this has put them in the crosshairs of Israeli forces acting without regard to legal and moral standards.
Israeli forces have killed 196 Palestinian media workers in Gaza since the war began last year, according to the Gaza government media office. CPJ, which did not include some media workers in its list, puts the death toll at 133.
On Sunday, Al Jazeera condemned al-Louah’s killing, and accused Israel of carrying out a “systematic killing of journalists in a ruthless manner”.
Al-Louah was the latest of several Al Jazeera-affiliated journalists killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of the war. He was killed in an Israeli strike on the first anniversary of the killing of another Al Jazeera cameraman, Samir Abudaka.
Earlier this year, Israel also killed the network’s correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and his fellow cameraman Rami al-Rifi in a targeted strike.
The Israeli military has not denied targeting al-Louah and other Al Jazeera journalists. Instead, it has tried to create a familiar pretext to justify his killing – accusing him without evidence of being a member of Palestinian armed groups, which the network has vehemently denied.
On Sunday, the Israeli military claimed that al-Louah was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, providing no evidence to prove the allegations.
Israel also said that al-Ghoul was a member of Hamas and later released an apparently fabricated document as alleged evidence, claiming that al-Ghoul had received Hamas military rank in 2007 – when He must have been 10 years old.
Since the war on Gaza began, Israel has alleged – mostly without evidence – that its attacks on Palestinians are part of its campaign against Hamas.
The Israeli military has also bombed schools, hospitals and camps for displaced people, claiming it was targeting Hamas fighters.
