Media freedom watchdog decries Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza 

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has denounced Israel’s killing of four Palestinian journalists in Gaza over the past week as the Israeli military intensifies its bombardment of the besieged territory.

The United States-based watchdog said in a statement on Monday that the international community has failed to hold Israel accountable for its actions amid the growing death toll of journalists and civilians in Gaza.

“At least 95 journalists and media workers have been killed worldwide in 2024,” CPJ’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg said.

“Israel is responsible for two-thirds of those deaths and yet continues to act with total impunity when it comes to the killing of journalists and its attacks on the media.”

The remarks came a day after Israeli forces killed Ahmed al-Louh, a 39-year-old Palestinian journalist who worked for Al Jazeera as a cameraman, in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Over the previous days, Israel also killed journalists Mohammed Balousha, Mohammed Jabr al-Qrinawi and Eman Shanti.

Hours before an Israeli air strike killed Shanti along with her husband and children in Gaza City on Wednesday, the Palestinian journalist wrote on social media: “Is it possible we’re still alive until now?”

According to local health authorities, Israel has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza. It has also levelled large parts of the enclave and imposed a suffocating blockade, leading to deadly hunger across the territory.

United Nations experts and rights groups have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

With no foreign reporters allowed to work in Gaza, Palestinian journalists have been the only witnesses describing the atrocities to the outside world. And that, rights advocates argue, has put them in the crosshairs of an Israeli military operating without regard to legal and ethical norms.

According to the Gaza Government Media Office, Israeli forces have killed 196 Palestinian media workers in Gaza since the start of the war last year. CPJ, which has not included some media workers in its tally, puts the death toll at 133.

On Sunday, Al Jazeera condemned the killing of al-Louh, accusing Israel of carrying out a “systematic killing of journalists in cold blood”.

Al-Louh was the latest of several Al Jazeera-affiliated journalists killed by Israeli forces since the start of the war. He was killed on the first anniversary of the killing of another Al Jazeera cameraman, Samer Abudaqa, in an Israeli attack.

Earlier this year, Israel also killed the network’s correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and his companion cameraman Rami al-Rifi in a targeted attack.

The Israeli military has not denied targeting al-Louh and other Al Jazeera journalists. Instead, it has tried to employ a familiar excuse to justify their killing – accusing them, without evidence, of being members of Palestinian armed groups, which the network has vehemently denied.

On Sunday, the Israeli military claimed that al-Louh was a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, providing no proof to back the allegations.

Israel had also said that al-Ghoul was a member of Hamas and later released an apparently fabricated document as supposed evidence, which claimed that al-Ghould received a Hamas military rank in 2007 – when he would have been 10 years old.

Since the outbreak of the war on Gaza, Israel has alleged – mostly without evidence – that its attacks on Palestinians are part of its campaign against Hamas.

The Israeli military has also bombed schools, hospitals and displaced people’s camps, claiming that it was targeting Hamas fighters.