The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq, strongly denounce Israel’s systematic and widespread attacks against Palestinian journalists, media workers, and their family in Gaza. Our organizations affirm that the deliberate targeting of journalists and media workers has been a consistent pattern since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Israeli forces have consistently regarded journalists and their institutions as targets, implementing a policy intended to intimidate and silence them. This policy aims to cover up Israeli atrocities in Gaza, including ongoing acts of genocide, deter witness accounts and obstruct the gathering of documentation needed for criminal accountability.
In less than three months, Israel turned Gaza into the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that “[t]he Israeli army has killed more journalists in 10 weeks than any other army or entity has in any single year.” According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, between 7 October and 28 December 2023, Israeli forces have killed 105 Palestinian journalists and media workers, averaging more than one per day. Some were killed while performing their work on the field, while others were killed alongside their families due to Israeli attacks on their homes. Notably, this figure does not include social media activists, many of whom have been targeted by Israeli attacks. This alarming trend has been accompanied by continuous incitement against social media activists and journalists, with some receiving death threats.
One of the most recent Israeli attacks on Palestinian journalists and media workers led to the killing of Al-Jazeera’s cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa, 45, who was covering events in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Three members of the civil defense teams were also killed in the same attack: Hosni Khalil Nabhan, Nour Al-Din Mohammed Saqer, and Rami Hisham Bdeir, the latter of whom also worked as a photographer. Additionally, Al-Jazeera’s correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh sustained injuries in the attack. For a detailed report on the incident, readers can find more information at the bottom of this page.
Adding to the appalling number of murders, Israeli authorities and forces have carried out other forms of persecution against journalists and media workers. Many journalists have sustained injuries as a result of Israeli attacks, whether they occurred while on duty or during their off-duty hours. Several journalists, including Al Jazeera’s Wael Al-Dahdouh and freelance cameraman Mohammed Alaloul, have tragically lost family members to Israeli attacks while they were covering the war.
In the course of their ground invasion of Gaza, Israeli forces also reportedly detained at least seven Palestinian journalists. In many instances, Israeli authorities continue to withhold information regarding the conditions of their detention or their whereabouts. As of 28 December 2023, it was reported that the Gaza bureau chief for The New Arab’s Arabic-language edition al-Araby al-Jadeed, journalist Diaa al-Kahlout, was rounded up alongside hundreds of other Palestinian men, including his brothers and other relatives, in the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. According to The New Arab, “[n]either his family nor employer know what has become of him.” This secrecy extends to hundreds of other Palestinian captives apprehended from Gaza during the ground invasion, leading Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer to condemn the actions of Israeli forces as the crime against humanity of enforced disappearance, among other crimes.
Under customary international humanitarian law, journalists in war zones must be treated as civilians and granted corresponding protection. Additionally, they are also entitled to the safeguards provided by international human rights law, particularly under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Our organizations warn that the deliberate killing of journalists qualifies as a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Such acts also constitute an arbitrary deprivation of life, and therefore violate Article 6 of the ICCPR. Moreover, these actions represent an assault on the right to freedom of the press and freedom of expression, safeguarded by human rights law, notably under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 19 of the ICCPR.
The ongoing persecutory acts against journalists and media workers in Gaza must be situated within a broader context of years of attacks and harassment against Palestinian journalists by Israeli forces. Our organizations have recorded specific incidents of targeted attacks against journalists and media workers since Israel’s first major military offensive in Gaza in 2008 as well as in successive rounds of hostilities. Israel’s repression of Palestinian journalists goes beyond Gaza and spans the entire occupied Palestinian territory, as illustrated by the extrajudicial killing of Al Jazeera’s journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin refugee camp, in the occupied West Bank city, on 11 May 2022.
This pattern is fueled by the prevailing impunity and lack of accountability for Israeli crimes. The attacks on journalists reporting on Gaza’s Great March of Return (GMR) and current events underscore the repercussions of impunity. On 6 April 2018, journalist Yasser Murtaja was shot by Israeli snipers while documenting a peaceful demonstration in eastern Gaza, despite being equipped with a clearly marked bulletproof vest and helmet labeled “PRESS.” He succumbed to his injuries the following day. None was held accountable for his killing. Yasser co-founded the Gaza-based production company Ain Media together with fellow journalist Roshdi Sarraj, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on 22 October 2023.
In light of these circumstances, and the apparent perpetration of international crimes against Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza, we call on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to expedite the issuing of arrest warrants and to promptly undertake concrete measures to advance the investigation into the Situation in Palestine, and to hold accountable perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, including those believed to be responsible for perpetrating, ordering, planning, and instigating crimes against journalists.
We also call on the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression to devote her next report on the killing of Palestinian journalists, so that it can be used by various parties, including the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC.
Lastly, our organizations call on Third States to assume their responsibilities to protect the Palestinian people as a whole, and journalists in particular, and to stop the double standards. We affirm that the time has come for a serious and immediate ceasefire and a cessation of the Israeli military aggression that has destroyed everything in Gaza.
