The Committee to Shield Journalists says focus of reporters killed in Gaza ‘unparalleled’ within the group’s historical past.
As Israeli forces pound the Gaza Strip, journalists are being killed at a price with no parallel in fashionable historical past, a press freedom watchdog says.
The Committee to Shield Journalists (CPJ) stated on Thursday that 68 media employees have been killed within the 10 weeks of preventing – 61 of them Palestinian, 4 Israeli and three Lebanese.
Amongst them is Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa, who was killed in an Israeli drone strike final week whereas reporting from a faculty in Khan Younis.
“Extra journalists have been killed within the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza conflict than have ever been killed in a single nation over a complete yr,” the CPJ stated in a press release.
“Greater than half the deaths – 37 – occurred in the course of the first month of the conflict, making it the deadliest single month ever documented by CPJ because it started recording journalist fatalities in 1992,” it added.
The assertion got here as Palestinian reporters in Gaza proceed to work underneath brutal circumstances, dealing with fixed bombardment, displacement and potential focusing on by Israeli forces.
The report drew consideration to what CPJ known as “an obvious sample of focusing on of journalists and their households by the Israeli navy”, noting that it had recorded not less than one occasion wherein a journalist was killed whereas carrying clearly marked press insignia with no preventing within the surrounding space.
“The focus of journalists killed within the Israel-Gaza conflict is unparalleled in CPJ’s historical past and underscores how grave the state of affairs is for press on the bottom,” CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg stated.
“Native Palestinian journalists proceed to report from Gaza whereas residing in concern for his or her lives.”
The focus of journalists killed in Gaza outpaces that of different battle zones, akin to Ukraine, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, it stated.
The CPJ stated Iraq was the one nation to strategy the present loss of life toll in Gaza when in 2006, 56 journalists had been killed within the wake of america invasion of the Gulf nation three years earlier.
One other Al Jazeera journalist, Wael Dahdouh, misplaced his spouse, son, daughter and grandson in an Israeli bombing final month and was wounded within the assault that killed Abudaqa.
Al Jazeera has stated it will refer Abudaqa’s killing to the Worldwide Prison Courtroom (ICC), stating that the strike befell inside a context of “recurrent assaults on the Community’s crews working and working within the occupied Palestinian territories and cases of incitement in opposition to them”.
