New massacre against truth: Israel kills 5 Palestinian journalists in Gaza

Yasmine Osama Farag , Thursday 26 Dec 2024

An Israeli strike killed five Palestinian journalists outside a hospital in the central Gaza Strip early Thursday, in a new Israeli crime against Palestinian journalists while performing their duties.

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The five journalists were killed at dawn on Thursday, 26 December 2024, in an Israeli occupation forces bombing in the central Gaza Strip. WAFA

 

Palestinian Al-Quds Today TV announced that five of its journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the channel's broadcast vehicle in Al-Nuseirat camp.

According to witnesses in Al-Nuseirat, a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft hit the broadcast vehicle, which was parked outside Al-Awda Hospital, setting the vehicle on fire and killing those inside, AFP reported.

 

 

The channel identified the five staffers as Faisal Abu Al-Qumsan, Ayman Al-Jadi, Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna, and Mohammed Al-Lada'a.

According to WAFA news agency, journalist Ayman Al-Jadi had arrived at Al-Awda with his wife, who was about to give birth to their first child.

However, he took advantage of the waiting hours to check on his colleagues outside the hospital by the TV broadcast vehicle.

The five journalists were killed "while performing their journalistic and humanitarian duty," Al-Quds Today said in a statement.

It described the incident as "a crime added to the series of crimes committed by the occupation against Palestinian journalists."

"We affirm our commitment to continue our resistant media message," the Palestinian channel added.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the Israeli massacre committed against journalists in the Al-Nuseirat camp.

In a statement, the syndicate said that "this crime is part of a series of ongoing Israeli attacks against Palestinian journalists, aiming to target media workers everywhere and at all times, in an attempt to obscure the truth and stifle freedom of expression."

Israel's pattern
 

The Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) Middle East arm said the organization was "devastated by the reports that five journalists and media workers were killed inside their broadcasting vehicle by an Israeli strike."

"Journalists are civilians and must always be protected," it added in a statement on social media.

CPJ has repeatedly denounced Israel’s smearing of killed Palestinian journalists with "terrorist" labels, calling for an end to such unsubstantiated claims. It also demanded international, swift, and independent investigations into these killings.

"Even before the start of the Israel-Gaza war, CPJ had documented Israel’s pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without producing evidence," said CPJ Programme Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in August. 

"Smear campaigns endanger journalists and erode public trust in the media. Israel must end this practice and allow independent international investigations into the journalists’ killings."Bloody path to truth
 

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said last week that more than 190 journalists had been killed and at least 400 injured since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza.

On Monday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) revealed that worldwide, 104 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024 – more than half of them were in Palestine.

Journalists there have faced death more than their colleagues in any other country, according to IFJ.

Research by the IFJ, a non-partisan organization representing the rights of media workers, found that 55 journalists were killed in Palestine this year, compared with 49 in the rest of the world.

Their figures do not include journalists who have been arrested (75 Palestinian journalists have been imprisoned since October 2023, and only 30 of them have been released), nor do they include those who have been injured (approximately 49) or missing (at least two), according to The Guardian.

Since Israel has prohibited the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza, only Palestinians can report on the violence and human rights abuses committed in the territory.

For those Palestinian journalists who the Israeli military has not killed, working conditions are still near-impossible.

Over 90 percent said they had lost equipment essential for reporting and were without essential protective gear such as helmets, according to a survey by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), The Guardian reported.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for "war crimes committed against journalists by the Israeli army."

In a separate report published in mid-December, the RSF said "more than 145" journalists had been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since the start of the war there in October 2023, with 35 of them working at the time of their deaths.

It described the number of killings as "an unprecedented bloodbath."

"Palestine is the most dangerous country for journalists, recording a higher death toll than any other country over the past five years," RSF said in its annual report, which covers data up to 1 December.

 

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