According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 64 journalists and media workers have been killed since the onset of the war in Gaza.
CPJ is also investigating numerous unconfirmed reports of other journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt, or threatened, and of damage to media offices and journalists’ homes.
“CPJ emphasizes that journalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator.
“Journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this heart-breaking conflict. Those in Gaza, in particular, have paid, and continue to pay, an unprecedented toll and face exponential threats. Many have lost colleagues, families, and media facilities, and have fled seeking safety when there is no safe haven or exit.”
The latest media worker to fall victim to the Israeli war in Gaza is Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa who succumbed to his injuries sustained in an Israeli regime's drone strike in Khan Yunis on Friday.
According to Al Jazeera, its cameraman Abu Daqqa was injured in the city of Khan Yunis on Friday after Israeli drones fired missiles at a school where civilians had taken shelter.
“Following Samer’s injury, he was left to bleed to death for over 5 hours, as Israeli forces prevented ambulances and rescue workers from reaching him, denying the much-needed emergency treatment,” the news network added.
Al Jazeera condemned “in the strongest terms” the Israeli attack that resulted in the killing of its cameraman.
“It is critical that journalists be able to do their work free from violent attacks, free from violence,” UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York, the US, on Friday, according to a press release by the UN.
“We said this over and over again, the guns must be silenced,” Dujarric noted.
“We’ve called for a humanitarian ceasefire and we have called for the guns to be silenced in conflicts all over the world where journalists are being killed, where UN facilities are being destroyed, and where innocent civilians are paying the price,” he further noted.
Abdel Bari Atwan, who is the editor-in-chief of Arabic digital news and opinion website Rai al-Youm, has spoken out against the killing of journalists by the Israeli regime amid the ongoing Gaza war, saying that the regime is trying to silence them as they cover Israeli crimes.
The renowned Arab Journalist and Analyst has said that reporters and camerapersons have been targeted by the Israeli regime even though they wore clothes with a press sign and had agreed to regulations making it necessary for all parties to behave impartially.
The Israeli regime stands in first place in the world when it comes to violating the rights of journalists and killing them, to silence them and turn off their cameras that cover all those crimes, the analyst said.
The Rai al-Youm editor-in-chief stressed that the terrifying policy by Israel will not stop journalists from continuing their mission to reveal the regime’s crimes.
On May 11, 2022, the Palestinian report of Al-Jazeerah Shireen Abu Akleh was directly fatally shot by the Zionist regime’s armed forces while she was covering their assault on Jenin camp in the West Bank.
The Zionist regime’s crimes against journalists follow its crimes against children and infants imprisoned with their mums, historical massacres like what happened in Sabra and Shatila and other camps in Palestine and Lebanon, the bombardment of residential districts in Gaza and the West Bank, over 10-year blockade of Gaza and prevention of drug and fuel supply, burning Egyptian war prisoners alive in the 1967 war, and tens of other similar examples supported by Western countries, especially the US and Britain.
Reported by Tohid Mahmoudpour