At least 11 journalists have died over the past week in the deadly confrontation between Hamas and Israel.
Reporters Without Borders reports, “Five Palestinian journalists are among the hundreds of civilians who have been killed in the military offensive by Hamas and the response by the Israel Defense Forces.” At least one journalist working in Israel was also killed.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating the journalists killed in Israel and Gaza and is compiling an updated list of the dead, missing and injured.
On Friday afternoon, Reuters reported that videographer Issam Abdallah had been killed. Reuters journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh “also sustained injuries and are seeking medical care.”
— Reuters Press Team (@ReutersPR) October 13, 2023
Three journalists died from an airstrike in Gaza on Oct. 10. Reporters Without Borders says the journalists killed were:
- Mohammed Soboh, a photojournalist with the Palestinian news agency Khabar
- Said al-Tawil, the editor of the independent Palestinian TV news channel Al Khamissa
- Hisham al-Nawajha, an Al Khamissa photojournalist
At least two other journalists were killed in Israeli airstrikes:
- Ahmed Shehab, a journalist for Sowt Al-Asra Radio (Radio Voice of the Prisoners), died an Israeli airstrike that struck his house in the northern Gaza Strip, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported. His wife and three children were also killed.
- Mohamed Fayez Abu Matara, a freelance photojournalist, was killed during an Israeli airstrike, according to The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.
Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have identified more journalists who have died from gunshots in the opening days of this war:
- Ibrahim Lafi, a Palestinian photojournalist with the Ain Media production company
- Mohammad al-Salihi, a freelance photojournalist reporting for the Palestinian news agency al-Sulta al-Rabia
- Mohammad Jarghoun, a journalist with Smart Media. Jarghoun was shot while reporting on the conflict in an area to the east of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian press freedom group MADA and the JSC.
- Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi, a photographer for Ain Media, was shot and killed at the Gaza Strip’s Erez Crossing into Israel, according to MADA and JSC.
- Yaniv Zohar, “An Israeli photographer working for the Israeli Hebrew-language daily newspaper Israel Hayom, was killed during a Hamas attack on Kibbutz Nahal Oz in southern Israel,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reports. ”Israel Hayom and Israel National News reported that his wife and two daughters also died in the attack. Israel Hayom editor-in-chief Omer Lachmanovitch told CPJ that Yaniv was working on that day.”
Two more journalists, Ain Media’s Haitham Abdelwahid and Nidal Al-Wahidi, are missing and may have been captured by Israeli forces.
Local media offices in Gaza have experienced gunfire and worse. An Israeli airstrike destroyed the independent newspaper Al-Ayyam, located in the Palestine Tower in Gaza, but the news organization is still publishing online.
In May 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists published “Deadly Pattern,” which documented how nobody has been held accountable for nearly two dozen journalist deaths prior to this week. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are among the most dangerous zones on the planet for working journalists. In the last decade, 22 journalists have died there. A fourth of those deaths occurred this week. The committee’s investigation found a pattern of Israeli responses to calls for investigations into the deaths of journalists:
The military consistently says its troops feared for their safety or came under attack and declines to revisit its rules of engagement. In at least 13 cases, witness testimonies and independent reports were discounted. Conflicts of interest in the chain of command are overlooked. The military’s probes are classified and the army makes no evidence for its conclusions public. In some cases, Israel labels journalists as terrorists, or appears not to have looked into journalist killings at all. The result is always the same — no one is held responsible.
The death toll of journalists will undoubtedly grow in the days ahead as reporters, photographers and producers document the unfolding horror that will accompany a ground war in Gaza. It will be vitally important to document how or whether Israel attempts to minimize civilian deaths while attempting to obliterate Hamas and rescue hostages.
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- How standards editors are sorting through graphic images from Israel and Gaza
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it’s not ONE day of massacre and the war is over. the war against Israel has been going for 9 days. thousands of rockets lunched almost EVERY HOUR into Israel. the whole South, Tel Aviv, northern towns are being constantly hit with rockets. entirely town of Shderot (60,000 people) has been evacuated to the different parts of the country, wherever some space was found for them.
hamas is a political party that was elected by palestinians for one and the only purpose: to kill Israelis.. hamas is an army whose soldiers are Gazans. they are fully responsible for starting the war and deserve everything that’s coming to them.