By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Journalists continue to be a target of Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip, with two more reporters killed on Monday.

Two more Palestinian journalists have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in the besieged Gaza Strip, increasing the death toll to 126 since October 7, according to the government media office.

The two reporters have been identified as Alaa Hassan Al-Hams and Angham Ahmed Adwan of the local SND News Agency and Libya’s February channel, respectively.

The Government Media Office said the death toll of journalists in Gaza rose to 126 after the Israeli murder of two female journalists. pic.twitter.com/IrE1XDvcwH

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) February 12, 2024

They were killed in an Israeli bombardment in Rafah and Jabalia cities on Monday, the media office said, without providing any further details.

Last month, the office of the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, confirmed to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) that “crimes against journalists” are included in its ongoing investigation into the situation in Palestine.

This follows the two last complaints filed by the Paris-based RSF with the International Criminal Court, the first on October 31 and the second on December 22, which called on the prosecutor “to investigate all Palestinian journalists killed by the Israeli army.”

RSF said that Khan’s office “stated for the first time that crimes against journalists were included in its investigation.”

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The statement assured the RSF that “crimes against journalists are being examined by the prosecutor’s office, among other potential crimes, as part of the ongoing investigation into the situation in Palestine, and RSF’s objectives and actions must be supported and are of crucial importance in Gaza and elsewhere.”

It added that “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.”

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 28,340 Palestinians have been killed, and 67,984 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.

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Moreover, at least 8,000 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.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all of 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.

(Palestine Chronicle)