“Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth.”
A Palestinian journalist has been killed in an Israeli airstrike, increasing the death toll since October 7 to 141, according to Gaza’s government media office.
Mohammed al-Jamal, a reporter with Palestine Now news agency, was killed when fighter jets struck his house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, the media office said in a statement. Six people were killed in the strike.
“Six months of war are six months too many in which more than 100 journalists have been killed in Gaza,” said Jonathan Dagher, head of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Middle East desk, in a statement.
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Dagher said the Israeli forces “are silencing those who are driven by a duty to report the facts.”
“RSF calls on the international community, its leaders and its governments, to do everything to step up pressure on the Israeli authorities to end this disaster. Palestinian journalism must be protected as a matter of urgency,” he added.
‘Paying Highest Price’
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said since the current onslaught on Gaza, “journalists have been paying the highest price— their lives—to defend our right to the truth.”
“Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna.
“Journalists are civilians who are protected by international humanitarian law in times of conflict. Those responsible for their deaths face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”
ICC Probe
In January, the office of the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, confirmed to RSF that “crimes against journalists” are included in its ongoing investigation into the situation in Palestine.
RSF said that Khan’s office “stated for the first time that crimes against journalists were included in its investigation.”
The organization said Khan’s office also said, “Journalists are protected by international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute and must not under any circumstances be targeted in the exercise of their important mission.”
Over 34,000 Dead
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 34,305 Palestinians have been killed, and 77,293 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
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The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
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