An international campaign led by RSF and Avaaz, joined by 257 media outlets worldwide, is demanding urgent protection for Palestinian journalists in Gaza, where 247 have been killed since October 2023, making it the deadliest war for the press in modern history.
Many newspapers around the world turned their front pages black, while news websites, TV channels, and radio stations joined in with banners, video clips, and audio messages.
This global action is part of a campaign launched by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Avaaz in solidarity with Palestinian journalists in Gaza and in condemnation of the ongoing Israeli crimes against them.
The campaign warned: “At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed.” A total of 257 media outlets from more than 50 countries participated in the initiative.
It called for urgent measures, including the protection of Palestinian journalists, evacuation for those wishing to leave Gaza, an end to Israel’s impunity for crimes against the press, and unrestricted access for foreign journalists.
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The campaign urged the international community to act decisively, coinciding with the upcoming 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, and demanded that the UN Security Council move to stop Israel’s crimes against journalists.
According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, 247 journalists have been killed since the start of Israel’s genocidal war.
14 journalists were killed in just 15 days last month—between August 10, when an Israeli strike on a media tent killed correspondents Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqa, and four colleagues, and August 15, when five more journalists were killed in consecutive airstrikes on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis.
RSF blacked out its website to mark the campaign, while The Guardian published an editorial stressing that an entire generation of journalists is being wiped out, declaring: “Israel wants to stop the world from seeing what it’s doing”.
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The paper also described this war as the deadliest for journalists in modern history and published the full list of slain journalists compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), honoring their sacrifice despite threats, hunger, and exhaustion.
The Independent echoed these concerns in its own editorial, warning that Israel has turned Gaza into a place unsafe for everyone—not only journalists—and emphasizing the urgent need for immediate, unrestricted media access to reveal the reality on the ground.
The Palestine Chronicle is also participating in the international media awareness campaign to highlight Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
(PC, AJA)
