The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says Israel has stepped up systematic attacks on journalists and media infrastructure since the start of its northern Gaza campaign.
Israeli strikes killed at least five journalists in October and Israeli forces began a smear campaign against six Al Jazeera journalists reporting on the north, the global media watchdog said in a statement.
“There are now almost no professional journalists left in the north to document what several international institutions have described as an ethnic cleansing campaign. Israel has not allowed international media independent access to Gaza in the 13 months since the war began,” CPJ said.
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“It seems clear that the systematic attacks on the media and campaign to discredit those few journalists who remain is a deliberate tactic to prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing there,” said CPJ programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna.
“Reporters are crucial in bearing witness during a war, without them the world won’t be able to write history.”
“The situation is catastrophic and beyond description,” a camera operator for the privately owned Al-Ghad TV, Abed AlKarim Al-Zwaidi, told CPJ.
“We do not know what our fate will be in light of these circumstances.”
Media watchdogs have varying figures on the death toll of Gazan journalists, but the Palestine Media Office reports at least 188 have been killed in the Israeli war on the enclave.
This figure includes four more journalists who have been killed and have been named by the media office: Zahraa Muhammad Abu Sakhil and Ahmed Muhammad Abu Sakhil, siblings killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City on Saturday; Mustafa Khader Bahr, a correspondent killed on March 31 near the Kuwait roundabout south of Gaza City; and Abdul Rahman Khader Bahr, a photojournalist killed on October 6 in al-Karama, northwest of Gaza
Rights groups say the Gaza conflict has been the most dangerous ever recorded for journalists.
Could not answer questions
The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these killings, repeating previous statements it could not fully address questions if sufficient details about individuals were not provided.
The statement reiterated previous comments that it “directs its strikes only towards military targets and military operatives, and does not target civilian objects and civilians, including media organisations and journalists.”
CPJ is also investigating reports that two other journalists were killed during this time in northern Gaza.
Al Jazeera report on the Amsterdam clashes. Video: AJ
Meanwhile, the UN Special Reporteur on the Occupied Palestine Territories, Francesca Albanese, has called for Western media to be investigated over their coverage of the clashes between Israeli football fans and locals in the Dutch city of Amsterdam.
The call came after some Western media outlets failed to report on or minimised the actions of the fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv ahead of and during the confrontations on Friday.
“Once again, Western media should be investigated for the role they are playing in obscuring Israel’s atrocities,” Albanese said in a post on X.
“In other contexts, international tribunals have found media figures responsible for complicity, incitement, and other international crimes.”
Once again. Western media should be investigated for the role they are playing in obscuring Israel’s atrocities. In other contexts, intl tribunals have found media figures responsible for complicity, incitement, and other intl crimes. https://t.co/YGBA9cpxNW
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) November 9, 2024
In one video from the clashes, Israeli fans were heard singing: “Let the [Israeli army] win, and f*** the Arabs!” while another showed them tearing down a Palestinian flag from a building.
A timeline distributed on social media clearly indicated how the Israeli fans provoked the attack by their own violence, but this was largely ignored by Western media.
We are witnessing the total collapse of journalism. Instead, cognitive dissonance and blatant falsehoods reign supreme. Did anyone expect anything different from Western and Zionist media? pic.twitter.com/7vPP4dnaxm
— red. (@redstreamnet) November 8, 2024
