The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continue to target and kill journalists during their widescale genocidal campaign in Gaza ongoing for over 14 months. The latest of these attacks have killed three journalists, including a female journalist, in airstrikes within less than a week. One journalist was on duty, obviously wearing a PRESS-marked vest. Israel’s targeted attacks on journalists persist despite the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Galant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
According to PCHR’s field documentation, on the evening of Sunday, 15 December 2024, IOF targeted a civil defense site in the middle of a market in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, killing three civil defense personnel and Al Jazeera photojournalist Ahmed Bakr Al-Louh (39) who was covering the rescue operations by the civil defense teams, as he was wearing his distinctive press helmet and vest.
One day earlier, journalist Mohamed Ba’lousha, a reporter for Al-Mashhad channel, was killed in an airstrike in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City on 14 December 2024. Ba’lousha had previously been injured by an Israeli sniper fire while working in Gaza City about a year ago.
Furthermore, on 12 December 2024, journalist Eman Al-Shanti (38) a presenter at Al-Aqsa TV, was killed along with her three children in an airstrike targeting her family home in Gaza City.
The number of journalists killed by IOF since the onset of the Israeli genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip has risen to 196, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. This war has taken a record toll since the recording of journalist fatalities started in 1992. Among those killed were 20 female journalists. Meanwhile, the majority of journalists (191) were killed in Israeli warplane and drone airstrikes, and the remaining four were shot dead by Israeli snipers. Most journalists were killed alongside their families in targeted attacks on their homes.
Israel, by targeting journalists, aims to obliterate the truth for the latter’s significant role in livestreaming and unfolding the genocide to the whole world. “Israel is journalism’s number one enemy worldwide intending to prevent the world from seeing the atrocities committed against the Palestinian people while denying international journalists’ access to Gaza. All of this is part of a full-blown genocidal campaign and other international crimes, attempting to entrench a second Nakba on 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for over a year,” said Raji Sourani, Director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).
PCHR believes that Israel continues to pursue a systematic policy to eradicate journalism in the Gaza Strip as an integral part of the crime of genocide and marked by the direct targeting and blatant disregard for press insignia. Despite journalists wearing their distinctive uniforms and being in an area well known to IOF, they were deliberately targeted and killed.
PCHR asserts that the targeting of journalists intends to isolate the victims and prevent the documentation of Israel’s genocidal acts against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. PCHR calls on the international community to openly condemn the targeting of journalists, to exert pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to immediately stop these attacks, and to urgently provide international protection for civilians, including journalists, in the Gaza Strip.
PCHR reiterates that journalists enjoy special protection under international humanitarian law, akin to civilians. According to Article 79 of Protocol Additional I to the Geneva Conventions, which codifies a rule of customary international law, “journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in zones of armed conflict are civilians within the meaning of Article 50 (1). As such, they enjoy the full scope of protection granted to civilians under international human rights law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Israel has ratified but refuses to apply to the occupied territory, just as it denies the applicability of international humanitarian law.
PCHR emphasizes that the willful killing of journalists constitutes a war crime within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to Article 8 of the ICC Rome Statute. Such an act also constitutes arbitrary deprivation of life under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the perpetrators must be held accountable. The targeting of journalists is also a violation on the right to freedom of the press and freedom of expression as guaranteed under international human rights law, particularly Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
PCHR will continue its efforts to prosecute and hold accountable all those involved in crimes against Palestinian journalists and civilians.
