Israel has killed more journalists in Gaza than in any conflict in 30 years, Committee to Protect Journalists says
In 12 months, more journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza and Lebanon than in any similar period since 1992, according to CPJ.
By Sondos Asem
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more journalists in the past year than any other conflict in the past three decades, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
According to CPJ, a U.S.-based group that monitors human rights abuses against journalists around the world, at least 128 media workers were killed in the conflict between October 7 2023 and October 4, 2024. The organization is also investigating 130 other suspected cases of killings, detentions or injuries.
The group said it was the deadliest period for journalists since it began its documentation activities in 1992.
The data is questionable given the number of journalists killed reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which estimated that at least 175 journalists were killed between October 7, 2023 and October 6, 2024.
CPJ noted that journalists have worked over the past 12 months under the same dire humanitarian conditions as all civilians in Gaza: the devastating bombardment of the densely populated enclave that destroyed most of its buildings, the Israeli headquarters which led to famine, and the constant displacement of the population.
“Since the start of the war in Gaza, journalists have paid the highest price – their lives – to produce their reports. Without protection, without equipment, without an international presence, without means of communication, without water or food, they continue to do their essential work to tell the truth to the world,” said CPJ’s Carlos Martinez de la Serna.
“Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested or forced into exile, we lose fragments of the truth. Those responsible for these losses must be held accountable before two courts: one under international law, the other before the merciless gaze of history.”
Targeting journalists during conflicts is a crime under international law.
Israel is currently on trial before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in connection with a complaint filed by South Africa in December for alleged violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention. South Africa’s request cites targeting of Palestinian journalists as evidence.
“Palestinian journalists are being killed at a rate significantly higher than in any other conflict over the past 100 years. In the two months alone since October 7, 2023, the number of journalists killed has already exceeded that of the entire Second World War,” the document states.
In a 2022 report, the human rights organization Euro-Med Monitor identified more than 700 journalists and media workers killed in the Syrian war between 2011 and 2022, i.e. an average of more than 63 journalists killed per year. This is the heaviest toll of any war this century.
Reporters Without Borders has documented at least 300 professional and non-professional journalists killed over a ten-year period while covering the Syrian conflict.
Euro-Med said the war in Iraq has seen the deaths of 61 journalists, an average of six journalists per year, while the war in Yemen has seen the deaths of 42 journalists since 2014, an average of more than five journalists per year.
Before October 7, 2023, CPJ had already documented that 20 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli army fire in 22 years, but no one has been held responsible for these deaths.
Israel denies deliberately targeting journalists.
Source: Middle East Eye
BM translation for
