According to Reporter Sans Frontières, Israel is responsible for more than a third of the assassinations of journalists worldwide in 2024.
By Palestine Media Agency, December 16, 2024
Ahmed Baker al-Louh, 39, correspondent for the media Al Jazeera, has covered Israel's genocidal offensive against Gaza since its outbreak in October 2023, embedded within the Palestinian civil defense teams in the Gaza Strip. He was assassinated by Israel in an airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp, while covering rescue operations for a family injured in a previous bombing. He was wearing his press vest and helmet and was clearly identifiable as a journalist.
“This is another heartbreaking day for Palestinians, civil defense teams and journalists. We wonder how many more times we will report on the assassination of our colleagues and loved ones.” declared journalist Hind Khoudary for Al Jazeera, live from Deir el-Balah.
The strike also killed three civil defense workers, including the agency's local head, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Civil Defense is Gaza's main relief agency, and is regularly targeted by the Israeli army.
Al Jazeera said on Sunday that Palestinian journalist Mohammed Jabr al-Qrinawi was killed along with his wife and children in an Israeli airstrike that targeted their home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. , Saturday at the end of the day. Earlier on Saturday, media outlet Hani Mahmoud said its journalist Mohammed Balousha was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza.
According to the Palestinian Journalists Union (PJS), Israel has murdered at least 188 journalists since the start of its genocidal offensive in Gaza.
“The most dangerous country for journalists”
In its annual report published on December 12, 2024, the organization Reporter Sans Frontières (RSF) points to “the unprecedented massacre” in Gaza, for which “the Israeli armed forces are responsible”. If the estimate of the number of journalists is below the figure confirmed by the PJS (145 against 188), due to different calculation methods, the RSF report is unequivocal: “Palestine is the most dangerous country for journalists, recording a higher death toll than any other country for five years,” he says.
The report also denounces Israel's confinement of numerous journalists, in particular through the systematization of administrative detention, which allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians without trial or information about the charges. RSF also warns of torture methods used in Israeli prisons.
The report ranks the Israeli army at the top of “the main predators of press freedom in 2024. It indicates that “for at least 40 of them, RSF has sufficient evidence to indicate that they were taken for target because of their quality as journalists. » RSF has filed a new complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “war crimes committed against journalists by the Israeli army”. This is the fourth complaint filed by the organization since the start of Israel's genocidal offensive.
“As long as these killings go unpunished, their perpetrators will have no reason to stop. Protecting journalists in Gaza and Lebanon begins with the fight against impunity. Without journalists from Gaza, we lose access to information on the situation in Gaza,” declares Antoine Bernard in his plea for RSF.
