More than 250 international media outlets across 70 countries staged a coordinated front-page protest to condemn the killing of over 200 journalists in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The action demanded protection for Palestinian reporters and an end to Israeli impunity for crimes against the press.
“At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed,” the director of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) media freedom group, Thibaut Bruttin, said in a statement on Monday.
Those participating in the protest “demand an end to impunity for Israeli crimes against Gaza’s reporters, the emergency evacuation of reporters seeking to leave the Strip and that foreign press be granted independent access,” the RSF statement said.
The media group stated that it has filed four complaints at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israel for the war crimes the Israeli army has committed against journalists in Gaza.
RSF further indicated that in under 23 months, 220 journalists have been killed by the Israeli army in the besieged strip.
Gaza’s Government Media Office reports that 247 journalists have been killed since October 2023. The UN Human Rights Office cites the same figure.
The protest, also supported by the global campaign group Avaaz, appeared on the websites of news outlets including Al Jazeera, The Independent, French publications La Croix and L’Humanité, and German newspapers Tageszeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau, according to RSF.
The group additionally urged the international community to take decisive action and appealed to the UN Security Council to halt the Israeli army's violations against Palestinian journalists.
Monday’s protest came just a week after five journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza.
Among the victims were Al Jazeera photographer Mohammad Salama, Reuters photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, Mariam Abu Daqqa, who reported for several outlets including The Independent Arabic and the Associated Press, and journalist Moaz Abu Taha.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said the victims were killed on the hospital's fourth floor in a "double-tap strike" – one missile hitting first, followed moments later by a second as rescue crews rushed to the scene.
Earlier in August, an Israeli air strike killed six journalists, among them Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif. The journalists were sheltering in a tent reserved for media personnel outside Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital. Reports said that the Israeli strike was aimed specifically at al-Sharif.
As Israel continues to block foreign journalists from entering Gaza, Palestinian reporters remain the only direct sources of reporting from inside the conflict zone.
The Federation of News Agencies of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has also voiced its profound concern regarding the ongoing assassinations of Palestinian journalists by Israeli forces.
The federation underscored that the events occurring in Gaza represent a blatant infringement of international laws and standards, occurring alongside Israeli transgressions against press and media freedom, as well as its strategy of suppressing the truth, silencing dissent, obscuring its daily violations, and obstructing their dissemination to the global public.
The Israeli regime has killed at least 63,557 Palestinians, mainly women and children, in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
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