An Israeli army press release on December 26 attempted to justify a war crime. He brazenly admitted that the army cremated five Palestinian journalists in a clearly marked press vehicle in front of the Al-Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The five victims were Ibrahim Sheikh Ali, Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, Mohammed al-Ladaa, Fadi Hassouna and Ayman al-Gedi. Ayman had arrived at the hospital with his wife who was about to give birth to their first baby; He was visiting his colleagues in the vehicle when it was hit. Their baby was born several hours later and is now named after his father, who was not allowed to live long enough to celebrate his birth.
The Israeli army statement claimed that the five Palestinians were “operatives posing as journalists” and spreading “combat propaganda” because they worked for Al-Quds Al-Youm TV, affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. The Israeli military did not claim that it actually carried weapons or participated in any armed action.
Many Western publications cited the Israeli army's statement as if it were an objective position and not propaganda covering up a war crime. They failed to make clear to their audiences that attacking journalists, including journalists who can be accused of promoting “propaganda,” is a war crime; All journalists are protected by international humanitarian law, regardless of whether militaries like their reporting or not.
Article 79 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions establishes that all journalists “who participate in dangerous professional missions in zones of armed conflict shall be considered civilians… [and] will be protected […] and without prejudice to the right of war correspondents accredited to the armed forces.”
Completely ignoring these provisions of international law, the Israeli military has launched a massacre of Palestinian journalists over the past 15 months. According to the Gaza Government Media Office, 201 have died in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Other counts put the number at 217.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), some 138 Palestinian journalists were killed in Gaza and the occupied West Bank between October 7, 2023 and December 31, 2024. The organization counted the five victims of the Israeli army attack. on December 26 at the count.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders described Israel's killing of journalists as “an unprecedented bloodbath” and Palestine as “the most dangerous country for journalists.” CPJ has also listed Israel as one of the main “jailers of journalists.”
Israel not only refuses to recognize that any Palestinian media workers are protected, but also bans foreign journalists from entering Gaza.
It has been truly disturbing that the international media has done little to protest this ban. With the exception of a petition signed by 60 media outlets over the summer, the international media has not consistently followed up on such demands for 15 months.
If a major media outlet is not given access to a certain location, an indication of this ban is often attached to the news as a form of protest. However, in the case of Gaza, Israel is given a pass, especially by the mainstream Western media, and Israeli press releases are regularly presented as facts.
This complacency has allowed Israel to control the narrative and propagate its claim that this is a defensive war carried out by “the most moral army” in the world within the parameters of international law.
While United Nations experts, some Israeli NGOs such as B'Tselem, and all major international human rights organizations have denounced Israel's actions, the legacy media continues to give it the benefit of the doubt. In the rare cases where Western media has investigated Israeli claims, as The New York Times recently did, the findings overwhelmingly repeat reports that Arab media and some left-wing Israeli media had made months earlier, describing serious crimes being carried out. committing.
One of the reasons we have reached the point where Israel, the self-proclaimed “only democracy in the Middle East,” is massacring journalists with impunity is because it has never been held accountable for its gradual escalation of violence against media workers. during all these years. .
The 2022 murder of Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin is a case in point. While the Western media did some coverage and investigative work on his assassination, Israel was allowed off the hook with the claim that it was a “bad apple” and that the soldier responsible would be held accountable. It wasn't.
What our foreign colleagues should understand is that Israel's push to normalize the mass murder of journalists threatens not only Palestinian media workers. If such abhorrent behavior is normalized in war zones, no journalist, no matter what passport they carry, would be safe.
It is time for the international media community to stop making excuses for Israel and call its actions what they are: war crimes. It is time for journalists around the world to stand in solidarity with their Palestinian colleagues and demand accountability for those who have massacred them. It is time for them to demand from their governments actions that result in direct sanctions on Israel.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
