Covering Gaza: Deadliest War for Journalists

By Walid El Houri

On July 31, Al Jazeera journalists Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi were killed by Israel in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza while covering the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyya in Iran.

The Israeli military has acknowledged killing al-Ghoul and al-Rifi, accusing them of being members of Al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, and of participating in the October 7 attack. This dangerous accusation – refuted outright by the channel – has been used repeatedly by the Israeli side to justify the killing of journalists, which risks normalizing the targeting of journalists with unfounded accusations.

Al Jazeera said that Al Ghoul, who had previously reported on Israeli raids on Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, was arrested by Israeli forces in March and released 12 hours later, refuting allegations of his affiliation with Hamas or other organizations.

Nicola Perugini, associate professor of politics and international relations at the University of Edinburgh, warned on X against using such accusations against journalists:

A worrying model

According to preliminary figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 113 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war began on October 7, 2023. Three of them have been confirmed as having been targeted and ten others are under investigation. The Gaza government’s media office estimated that 165 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), “29 of the 120 journalists killed by RSF were killed in circumstances that suggest that this was a deliberate targeting, in violation of international law.” The press freedom organization has filed three complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to call for independent investigations into these war crimes.

Al Jazeera, which has been banned by Israel since May 2023, has been heavily targeted. Five of its journalists have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. Hamza al-Dahdouh, son of Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh, and Mustafa Thuraya were killed in an airstrike in January. The Israeli military also claimed that the two men were “members of Gaza-based terrorist organizations,” which the network and others have also denied.

In February, a drone strike injured Wael al-Dahdouh and killed cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa. Wael’s wife, seven-year-old daughter, and 15-year-old son were also killed in an Israeli airstrike on October 28, 2023.

“These deadly attacks on Al Jazeera staff coincided with a smear campaign by the Israeli authorities,” said RSF, which warned that “confusing journalism with ‘terrorism’ endangers reporters and threatens the right to information.”

“The killing of al-Ghoul and al-Rifi is the latest example of the risks of covering the war in Gaza, the deadliest conflict for journalists that the organization has documented in 30 years,” CPJ Executive Director Jodie Ginsberg told Al Jazeera, noting that Israeli killings of journalists have been a worrying trend over the past 20 years. “This appears to be part of a broader[Israeli]strategy to suppress reporting from Gaza,” she said, adding that Al Jazeera’s ban on reporting from Israel is part of that trend.

Trauma and exhaustion

Since October 7, Israel has not allowed any foreign journalists to enter the Gaza Strip to cover the ongoing war, unless they are embedded in the Israeli army. This total ban means that local journalists have to take on the lion’s share of the coverage of the situation, at great risk to their lives.

The immense trauma and exhaustion experienced by these local journalists, who remain vulnerable despite all possible security measures, was best expressed in a poignant quote from Al Jazeera English journalist Hind Khoudary, which went viral after the murder of her colleagues.

Another colleague, Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem correspondent Najwan Simri, wrote in a tribute to her colleague Ismail:

It was enough to look into his eyes, to contemplate his features, to feel the depth of Gaza’s sadness and reproaches towards us. I always had the impression that he reproached us with excessive politeness… and great hope, as if he had not lost hope in us for a single moment.

– Najwan Simri (@SimriNajwan) July 31, 2024

Meanwhile, local journalists in Gaza protested and held a vigil in response to al-Ghoul’s killing, expressing outrage at the dangerous conditions they face on a daily basis and the lack of accountability and protection. Al Jazeera Arabic staff held a silent protest live in their studio.

An emotional video of the moment Al Jazeera Arabic presenter received and shared the news of the murder of Ismail Al Ghoul and Rami Al Rifi has gone viral.

Bayan Abusultan, a Palestinian feminist journalist from Gaza, tweeted:

A story of impunity

Israel has a history of targeting journalists with impunity, as demonstrated by the case of Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by the Israeli military while reporting in the West Bank city of Jennine on May 11, 2022. Abu Akleh’s killing highlights the dangers Palestinian media workers face due to the lack of accountability.

CPJ’s Carlos Martínez de la Serna criticized Israel for refusing to cooperate with the FBI and blocking potential ICC investigations into his killing, calling for an end to Israel’s impunity for the killings of journalists, which have only increased during the ongoing war in Gaza.

In 2022, Abu Akleh’s family and Al Jazeera asked the ICC to investigate his murder, but Israeli leaders, including former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, resisted questioning by IDF soldiers and refused to open a criminal investigation into the killing.

The scale of Israel’s killings of journalists during this war is best illustrated when compared to the global toll. According to CPJ, more than three-quarters of the 99 journalists killed worldwide in 2023 were killed during the Gaza war. This alarming figure underscores the urgent need for accountability and stronger protections for journalists around the world to ensure the safety and protection of all journalists who bravely report from the frontlines of conflict.

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Previously published on globalvoices.org under Creative Commons license

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Credit: Reuters armoured vehicle damaged by an Israeli rocket attack on Gaza in 2006. Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana and a local journalist were injured in the attack. Two years later, Shana was killed when his news vehicle was hit by an Israeli tank shell in Gaza. Image by Eric Huybrechts via Flickr. CC BY-ND 2.0.

The article Covering Gaza: The Deadliest War for Journalists appeared first on The Good Men Project.