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Israel condemned over Gaza journalists ‘massacre’
According to calculations from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published on Thursday, the Israeli army killed 18 journalists as they were working this year – 16 in Gaza and two in Lebanon – around a third of the total worldwide of 54, AFP reported.
“Palestine is the most dangerous country for journalists, recording a higher death toll than any other country over the past five years,” RSF said in its annual report, which covers data up to December 1.
The organization has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “war crimes committed against journalists by the Israeli army”.
It said that in total “more than 145” journalists had been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since the start of the war there in October 2023, with 35 of them working at the time of their deaths.
RSF described the number of killings as “an unprecedented massacre”.
With foreign reporters prevented from entering the territory and local reporters being deliberately targeted, Gaza was “a place where journalism itself is threatened with extinction”, RSF said.
In a separate report published Tuesday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said that 104 journalists were killed worldwide in 2024, with more than half of them in Gaza.
The IFJ and RSF figures vary because of different methodologies used to calculate the tolls, but the IFJ used similar language to condemn Israel’s military.
“The war in Gaza and Lebanon once again highlights the massacre suffered by Palestinian (55), Lebanese (6) and Syrian (1) media professionals, representing 60 percent of all journalists killed in 2024,” the IFJ said.