The International Press Institute (IPI) global network calls on the international community to take urgent and immediate action to ensure the safety of all journalists in Gaza and the region. It urged that all states, including allies of Israel and Media Freedom Coalition members, to use all possible diplomatic means to hold Israel to its obligation to respect the rules of war, which requires states to protect journalists, as civilians, during times of armed conflict.
It said that the targeted and indiscriminate killing of journalists and civilians in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) must stop, and perpetrators must be held fully accountable for any violations of the Geneva Conventions and other international human rights treaties and obligations.
IPI said that at least 75 journalists have been killed in three months since the war started — the largest number of journalists to be killed in this span of time in any modern war or conflict on record. A vast majority of those killed have been Palestinian journalists covering the war from inside Gaza, where relentless airstrikes by the IDF have resulted in staggering civilian causalities and wide-scale devastation.
This spate of unprecedented violence against journalists in Gaza over the past three months follows years of targeted attacks on journalists and media outlets in Palestine by the IDF, including the targeted killing of veteran Al Jazeera journalist and IPI World Press Freedom Hero Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022.
Over the past 12 weeks in Gaza, Israel has also bombed media offices, arrested journalists and cut off access to essential communicaitons. This Israeli-imposed information blockade includes heavy restrictions on international journalists from entering and reporting from the Gaza Strip, which has dramatically limited information about the war from inside the region.
IPI said that freedom of the press and the right to share and access information are universal human rights guaranteed to all, regardless of borders. These human rights apply to journalists in Palestine as they do to all journalists around the globe.
It deplores that Israel has consistently flouted calls by the intergovernmental bodies, such as the UN, and civil society, including press freedom and human rights groups, to respect these obligations. IPI now calls on the international community — including, in particular, allies of Israel as well as all 50 member states of the Media Freedom Coalition — to use all diplomatic avenues to hold Israel to its international obligations to respect press freedom and journalists’ safety.
