The Palestinian Ministry of Health stated on Thursday that Israeli warplanes bombed a van belonging to journalists who worked for the Al-Quds Al-Youm television channel in front of Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat town of the central Gaza Strip overnight, resulting in the death of five journalists. Although the vehicle was visibly marked with the press motif on the back door, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) asserted that the victims were Islamic Jihad terrorists, and that the air-strike was conducted with “precision” and under “intelligence guidance.”
The Thursday assault was the third strike targeting journalists conducted by Israeli forces in December. On December 14 and 15, the Israeli military killed four Palestinian journalists in Gaza, with accusations of targeted and deliberate assassinations. With the death of nine journalists this month, the total toll documented by monitoring group Gaza Notifications has reached 201 during the ongoing conflict in Gaza in 2024, posing a significant threat to press freedom in modern society. Moreover, the Israeli military has forbidden foreign journalists from entering Gaza, which effectively hampers external documentation of the truth. Journalist Bisan Owda said in a video on social media platform X that the number of deaths now constitutes the highest number of journalists killed in any war.
According to the count of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, more than 190 journalists and media workers have been killed since the beginning of the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which “reflects the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists, an ongoing violation that amounts to a war crime under international law.” The Syndicate underlined that Israel’s systematic strikes blatantly violated international and human rights laws and constituted a war crime apart from other crimes targeting journalists and media workers during the occupation.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent and non-profit organization, denounced Israel’s killing of five journalists working for Al-Quds Al-Youm TV and called for the international community to protect Palestinian journalists in Gaza. CPJ estimated that more than 141 journalists have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war since October 7, 2023. This exacerbated the severe conditions facing journalists in northern Gaza and has led to a situation where “ethnic cleansing is happening in a news void in northern Gaza.”
Jodie Ginsberg, CPJ’s chief executive in New York, said: “Israel is responsible for two-thirds of those deaths and yet continues to act with total impunity when it comes to the killing of journalists and its attacks on the media.”
Al Jazeera, a major news media in the Arab world, pointed out that Israel has banned the network and accused six of its Gaza reporters of being members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which was vehemently deplored by the media as the “unfounded allegations.” It claimed that Israel had used “fabricated accusations … to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”
