Israel’s killing of five journalists in Gaza a few days ago has sparked global outrage and condemnation. The carnage is a reminder of the apocalyptic danger that journalists face in the discharge of their all-important duty of holding power to account. Four of the latest victims were Al-Jazeera journalists covering the humanitarian situation in Gaza and are part of the over 270 killed so far since the Israeli onslaught on the erstwhile Palestinian enclave began. This is evil and unacceptable!
A drone strike on 10 August claimed the life of Anas Al-Sharif, a 28-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who had been on Israel’s wanted list for so long. He was eliminated alongside his cameraman, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Qreiqeh, and another photojournalist, Mohammed Noufa. A total of seven people were killed in that attack outside the gate of Al-Shifa Hospital.
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As an endangered species, in no other part of the world have journalists been butchered more than in Gaza, since 7 October 2023, when Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, breached Israel’s territory. In the process, about 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed in a social gathering, with some 250 others taken as hostages. Israel’s reprisal quickly morphed into a full-scale bombardment, with benumbing consequences to date.
Since then, Al Jazeera reports that it has lost 50 journalists, while its website lists 269 Palestinian, three Lebanese, and two Israeli journalists as having been killed so far. But the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) claims that about 186 journalists have died from the conflict. A broad global consensus is that genocide, rather than a war, is what is going on in Gaza.
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The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have tried to rationalise Al-Sharif’s killing. They claim that details of an intelligence report at their disposal allegedly showed that he was a member of Hamas, with his name in their personnel roster, payroll, phone directories and training courses. However, this claim is being challenged by the CPJ. It argues that, “Israel’s pattern of labelling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom.” This view is shared by the Foreign Press Association and many more.
A joint statement by the BBC, Reuters, AP and AFP in July expressed “desperate concern” about journalists in Gaza, who were unable to feed themselves or their families. The UN Human Rights Office, in its post on X, said, “We call for immediate safe and unhindered access to Gaza for all journalists.”
All international media outlets have been barred from entering Gaza to report on the extent of the devastation and humanitarian situation there. This is certainly not without reason, even if a perverse one at that. Brown University in the US, in its project on the cost of the attacks, asserts that it is the deadliest theatre of conflict for journalists in history. This is a conclusion supported by the fact that the death toll, so far, outnumbers that of the World Wars I and II, Korean War, Vietnamese War, US Civil War, Yugoslavia War and the post-COVID-19 war in Afghanistan combined. This is mind-numbing and simply incredible.
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Barring journalists’ entry into Gaza is a grave signpost of the conflict. As the CPJ argued, and rightly so, this enables a void of news, with the unfortunate lack of documentation of the war crimes being committed. This concern is sufficient to evoke more global attention on the conflict and strategies to end it. Amnesty International, the global human rights watchdog, aptly says, the “attack is not just against journalists but journalism itself.”
Some of the journalists killed earlier, in 2023 and 2024, were in refugee centres where relief materials were being distributed to victims of the conflict. Among them were Ismail al-Ghoul and a cameraman, Shati, with clear identities as journalists, which was embossed on their vests, while the vehicle they moved about in also had a media tag. Lamentably, 2024 was the deadliest year for journalists worldwide, with 124 deaths, as recorded by CPJ since its three decades of keeping this surreal account.
Journalists’ lives matter! This cannot be said enough. “Journalists everywhere must be allowed to work without fear of being targeted,” as a message from the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, read.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, needs to be reminded constantly that there are rules of engagement in conflict. With Gaza totally in ruin and uninhabitable and about to be seized for Israel’s total occupation, John Austin’s theory that “International law is not really law” resonates, because of the vacuity of enforcement, largely.
ALSO READ: Israel targets, kills five Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza
Mr Netanyahu’s eerie plan is a mutation of an earlier proposal of his ally, President Donald Trump, who had hinted about turning the city into a Riviera for the US. Its original inhabitants were to be relocated to other countries of the world. Trump, so far, has been stoking, rather than smothering, the fire of this conflict.
Netanyahu’s adoption of this terrifying and imminent phase of permanent occupation, amid the ever-defiance of Hamas, means that the lives of more journalists are on the line. “Erase Gaza. Nothing else will satisfy us,” the battle cry of the Deputy Speaker of the Israeli parliament, Nissim Vaturi, voiced on 9 October 2023, appears frighteningly real at this point. Particularly, as Mr Netanyahu’s war cabinet has endorsed the permanent occupation of Gaza.
But from France, Canada, UK and Australia are signs of a new chapter in the conflict, with their avowal to accord recognition to the State of Palestine, in a two state solution agenda that refuses to go away, come September, during the next General Assembly of the United Nations, though with certain conditions that Palestinians must meet in military and policy reforms. Only France is prepared to embrace this unconditionally.
The relentless onslaught on Gaza has already claimed thousands of lives, with over 270 journalists dead, and created an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe that all people and nations of conscience must come together as a pressure group to end immediately.
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