By Committee To Protect Journalists
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
The Israel-Gaza war has taken an unprecedented toll on Gazan journalists since Israel declared war on Hamas following its attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
As of September 16, 2024, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 116 journalists and media workers were among the more than 42,000 killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, famine, the displacement of 90% of Gaza’s population, and the destruction of 80% of its buildings. CPJ is investigating more than 130 additional cases of potential killings, arrests and injuries, but many are difficult to document amid these harsh conditions.
“Since the war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest price – their lives – for their reporting. Without protection, equipment, international presence, communications, or food and water, they are still doing their crucial jobs to tell the world the truth,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth. Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”
Journalists are civilians and are protected by International Law. Deliberately targeting civilians constitutes a war crime. In May, the International Criminal Court announced it was seeking arrest warrant applications for Hamas and Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
To date, CPJ has determined that at least five journalists were directly targeted by Israeli forces in killings which CPJ classifies as murders: Issam Abdallah, Hamza Al Dahdouh, Mustafa Thuraya, Ismail Al Ghoul, and Rami Al Refee. CPJ is still researching the details for confirmation in at least 10 other cases that indicate possible targeting.
As of September 16:
- 116 journalists and media workers were confirmed killed: 111 Palestinian, two Israeli, and three Lebanese.
- 35 journalists were reported injured.
- 2 journalists were reported missing.
- 54 journalists were reported arrested.
- Multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.
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.
The list of killed journalists documented in our database includes names based on information obtained from CPJ’s sources in the region and media reports. It includes all journalists* involved in news-gathering activity. It is not always immediately clear whether all of these journalists were covering the conflict at the time of their deaths, but CPJ has included them in its count as it investigates their circumstances.
The list is being updated on a regular basis, with names being removed if CPJ confirms that those members of the media were not working journalists at the time they were killed, injured, or went missing.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials have repeatedly told media outlets that the army does not deliberately target journalists. It also told agencies shortly after the war started that it could not guarantee the safety of journalists. CPJ has called for an end to the longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF.
United Nations experts have raised concerns over the killings of journalists, saying in a February statement that they were “alarmed at the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers who have been killed, attacked, injured and detained in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in Gaza, in recent months blatantly disregarding international law.” READ MORE…
