Israeli forces have killed five journalists working for Al Jazeera, among them the prominent reporter Anas Al-Sharif, sparking global outrage over the targeting of media workers.

The killing has been condemned by the network, which called it a “desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza”.

The Committee to Protect Journalists also called for accountability, and the National Press Club demanded an inquiry into the killings.

On Monday morning, Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians in Khan Younis and Gaza City. Some of the attacks hit tents housing displaced families.

The latest developments come as Australia declared its plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) president, Nasser Mashni, said: “This recognition comes while Israel is committing an ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has been livestreamed to the world for almost two years.”

The world has stood by as Israel has murdered tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, wounded more than double that number, buried countless more under the rubble and devastated civilian infrastructure. The territory’s survivors, displaced repeatedly by the Israeli military, are in a state of enforced starvation and utter precarity. Despite Israel’s ban on international journalists, witnesses and victims are livestreaming unbearable images and videos of emaciated children and adults shot while desperately seeking aid. Israeli officials have proposed the construction of what would be concentration camps and the deportation of surviving Palestinians.

Motivated by our deep scholarly and ethical engagement with political violence and mass atrocity, including the Nazi genocide of Jewish people, we helped found the Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network in April. More than 400 scholars of genocide and Holocaust studies from two dozen countries joined within weeks of its launch. The rapid growth of the group testifies to the urgency of this moment. Today, along with hundreds of humanitarian organizations, dozens of governments, and millions of protesting students and citizens across the globe, we call for immediate concrete measures to prevent further atrocity crimes and to protect civilians.

Since the 7 October massacre, Israeli officials and their accomplices have justified genocidal violence against Palestinians by equating Hamas with Nazism, instrumentalizing the memory of the Holocaust to advance, rather than prevent, mass violence. Meanwhile, too many governments materially support the genocide in Gaza while silencing protest. Even as the tone of some official statements has become more critical of Israel in recent weeks, many states continue to supply Israel with lethal weapons, shield Israeli leaders from international arrest warrants and fuel investment in the Israeli war economy. International pressure can work, but we need much more of it.

The emergency is in front of us. And yet, some prominent scholars of the Holocaust continue to engage in open denialism or outright approval of mass atrocities perpetrated by Israel. Scholarly associations, universities and institutions dedicated to Holocaust research, education and commemoration not only remain silent in the face of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza but provide ideological cover for Israel’s blatant violations of international law. Institutions such as Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum adhere to a “Palestine exception” when opposing genocide and mass atrocity. At the same time, organizations dedicated to combating prejudice, such as the Anti-Defamation League, use spurious accusations of antisemitism to silence or discredit those who dare to speak out.

We are determined to challenge this moral and political capitulation.

We created the Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network to do just that. We pledge to support Palestinians as they exercise their rights to education and cultural heritage in the face of massive destruction of their schools, archives and memory sites. We commit to pressuring our institutions to confront the contradictions between their stated commitment to “never again” and their silence or complicity in the face of Gaza. In light of ongoing genocidal violence and the return of authoritarian regimes, we will provide new resources and syllabuses in order to teach rigorously about the past in the context of our ever more vulnerable present. We will offer solidarity and support to our students and colleagues who run grave personal and professional risks for speaking out.

We contest the widespread “conspiracy of helplessness” and the normalization of mass violence and starvation in Gaza. We have learned from history that there are many ways in which states can take action in response to crimes against humanity. We urge all states who signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to fulfill their responsibilities under international law: demand and enforce a permanent ceasefire, an arms embargo, the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, unimpeded distribution of humanitarian aid, and equality and self-determination for all Palestinians.

As members of the Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network, we say: it is not too late to save lives. End the genocide now.

Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh mourning his son, journalist Hamza Dahdouh who was killed alongside freelance video journalist Mustafa Thuraya in an Israeli drone strike in Rafah. [GETTY]

Moments before he was killed in 2004, student journalist and freelance photographer Mohamed Abu Halima spoke on the phone to a producer at his radio station, describing the army jeeps he had seen close to Balata refugee camp, outside the city of Nablus in the West Bank. The producer, Moaz Shraida, said Abu Halima told him he had started to photograph the jeeps. Shraida heard gunfire. Then, nothing.

According to witnesses, Abu Halima was shot in the stomach by Israeli armed forces (Palestinian journalists describe the waist and neck as the spots favoured by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) because they are not covered by body armour). He died in hospital. A spokesperson for the IDF at the time said that as far as the army knew, Abu Halima “was not a journalist” and that he “was armed and he opened fire on IDF forces”. To the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) knowledge, no investigation has ever been held into the journalist’s killing.

Twenty years later, this pattern in which Israel alleges that journalists are militants or terrorists – without providing credible evidence or undertaking transparent investigations into their killings – persists.

Related The stain on Western media press vests is from the blood of Gaza Voices

Israel’s tactics

Smearing journalists as criminals is a tactic particularly prevalent in autocratic regimes – but also a tactic used frequently by Israel in recent decades – and has two clear aims. The first is to justify attacks on journalists after the fact. A CPJ report published in May 2023 found that in at least six of the 20 cases of journalists killed by the IDF over the preceding 22 years, the IDF had alleged the individuals were involved in militant activity. In none of the 20 cases has anyone been held accountable for the deaths and few have even been accorded a transparent investigation.

The second tactic is intended to discredit Palestinian journalists more broadly. By seeding the idea that the journalists – the only individuals able to report what is happening inside Gaza – are terrorists, Israel can effectively smear all Palestinian journalists. This aims to undermine their credibility and thus, by extension, asks viewers and readers to doubt what they are seeing, and therefore to dismiss it.

It seems no coincidence that the allegations against the six Al Jazeera journalists in October came just as the IDF launched a major violent offensive that one senior officer said was aimed at creating a “cleansed space” in northern Gaza. Palestinian journalists who have been trying to report from the area told CPJ that atrocities were being committed amid a “news void”.

Related Rafah bloodbath: Now we know why Israel banned Al Jazeera Voices

Last month, Israel published documents it said proved six Al Jazeera journalists operating in Gaza were affiliated with militant groups. Al Jazeera vehemently rejected the claims, which came as Israel launched an assault on northern Gaza, attacks that rights groups said amounted to ethnic cleansing. Al Jazeera is one of the few major international broadcasters to still have reporters providing daily broadcasts from Gaza, where no international journalists have been allowed independent access since the start of the war.

Unreliable justifications

CPJ has been unable to independently verify the documents shared by the IDF on social media, but other experts have cast doubt on these and other similar documents produced in the past. For example, following the killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail Al Ghoul and freelance camera operator Rami Al Refee in a drone strike in July, the IDF published documents that showed Al Ghoul, born in 1997, received a Hamas military ranking in 2007. He would have been 10 years old.

After Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Al Dahdouh and freelancer Mustafa Thuraya were killed in an Israeli strike on January 7, Israel alleged that they were terrorists operating a drone “posing a threat” to IDF soldiers. A Washington Post analysis of their drone footage found “no indications that either man was operating as anything other than a journalist that day.” The available footage shows that the journalists did not film any IDF troops, aircraft, or military equipment, nor were there any indications of IDF troops in the vicinity of the area they filmed.

The Washington Post investigation also noted that both journalists passed through Israeli checkpoints on their way to the south early in the war and that Dahdouh had been approved to leave Gaza—“a rare privilege unlikely to have been granted to a known militant.”

Related By banning UNRWA, Israel attempts to erase Palestinian refugees Perspectives

The smear tactics are all part of a deliberate and much broader campaign to censor information coming out of Gaza and the West Bank that includes the targeting and killing of journalists, attacks on media facilities, bans on foreign media mainly targeted at Al Jazeera’s reporting, and threats to independent news outlets like Haaretz.

And it is having its desired effect: to disguise and diminish in the public’s eyes the catastrophic and disproportionate impact of the war on Palestinian civilians, and to dehumanise those suffering to help justify Israel’s disproportionate assault on Gaza.

This must not be allowed to stand. CPJ has called repeatedly for Israel to halt its attacks on the media and for Israel’s allies to use all tools at their disposal to ensure Israel upholds its commitments to a free press: this includes suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, as well as further EU targeted sanctions, and immediate action from the United States to halt the transfer of weapons being used in strikes on civilians.

In the absence of this much-needed and too long-delayed action, journalists will continue to play a pivotal role in documenting this war. It is vital that they be allowed to perform that act of witnessing and that we, as outside witnesses ourselves to these systematic attacks, play our part by speaking out loudly and clearly in their defence.

Jodie Ginsberg is the chief executive officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Follow her on X: @jodieginsberg

Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@newarab.com

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

Israel always boasted that it was the only country in the region to support press freedom. That boast rang hollow even before the current war. Now, it’s not even pretending. On Sunday, Israel openly and brazenly killed six journalists as they were sheltering in a tent that housed reporters and media workers.

Israel accuses one of those journalists – Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif – of being a terrorist. It has not said what crime it believes the others have committed that would justify killing them. The laws of war are clear: journalists are civilians. To target them deliberately in war is to commit a war crime.

It is hardly surprising that Israel believes it can get away with murder. In the two decades preceding 7 October, Israeli forces killed 20 journalists. No one has ever been held accountable for any of those deaths, including that of the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whose killing in 2022 sent shock waves through the region. Abu Akleh, a dual US-Palestinian citizen, was a household name in the Middle East, just as al-Sharif became a familiar face for audiences for his coverage of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Israel first began making threats against al-Sharif shortly after the start of the war. The journalist reported receiving multiple phone calls from officers in the Israeli army instructing him to cease coverage and leave northern Gaza, as well as voice notes on WhatsApp disclosing his location. In December 2023, an Israeli airstrike hit his family home, killing the journalist’s 90-year-old father.

A year later, the Israeli army alleged publicly that Anas al-Sharif was a terrorist – claims it repeated last month shortly after Anas al-Sharif exposed the rampant levels of starvation throughout Gaza as a result of Israel’s refusal to allow in sufficient food aid. An Israeli spokesperson accused al-Sharif of lying about the famine – despite corroboration of widespread starvation by independent and international groups.

The Committee to Protect Journalists had seen this playbook from Israel before: a pattern in which journalists are accused by Israel of being terrorists with no credible evidence. Indeed, we were so concerned that al-Sharif was being targeted that we issued a public statement urging his protection.

To date, Israel has provided no independently verifiable evidence that any of the journalists whom it has admitted deliberately targeting were terrorists

Instead, al-Sharif was killed alongside his colleagues in an attack that Israel has openly admitted was aimed at killing the journalist. Al-Sharif is the 184th Palestinian journalist to have been killed by Israel since the start of the war and one of at least 26 journalists whom CPJ believes to have been deliberately targeted for their work as journalists. The others have certainly been killed by Israel but whether Israel did so in full knowledge they were journalists we have not been able to determine.

Israel denies it deliberately targets journalists. But the evidence shows otherwise. To date, Israel has provided no independently verifiable evidence that any of the journalists whom it has admitted deliberately targeting were terrorists. In one case, that of the Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul, the documents produced allegedly showed that al-Ghoul became the leader of a Hamas battalion – when he was 10 years old. The documents Israel has shared on al-Sharif, which it posted on X, show al-Sharif as receiving a Hamas salary in 2023. The documents do not provide evidence that he was an active member of the terrorist group although Israel said it had “current intelligence” – which it did not publish – indicating al-Sharif was an active Hamas military wing operative.

It is no wonder that Israel is now so confident about killing journalists that it can admit to killing six journalists and media workers while only one was allegedly its target. The international community has been woeful in its condemnation of Israel’s actions.

And that includes our own journalism community. Whereas the Committee to Protect Journalists received significant offers of support and solidarity when journalists were being killed in Ukraine at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the reaction from international media over the killings of our journalist colleagues in Gaza at the start of the war was muted at best. In some high-profile killings – such as that of the Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah – some governments trotted out well-worn defences of press freedom, but stopped well short of seriously censuring Israel. And few took any concrete steps – such as the halt of arms sales or the suspension of trade agreements – that might have forced Israel to change course.

Now, with more than 192 journalists and media workers killed since the start of the war – the deadliest conflict for journalists that we have ever documented – condemnation from individual journalists and some newsrooms has grown more vocal. But it is hard to see, if Israel can wipe out an entire news crew without the international community so much as batting an eye, what will stop further attacks on reporters.

Already our window into Gaza was becoming more and more limited. As Israel moves into the latest phase of its assault on the territory, it now risks closing altogether.

Israel’s targeted killing of an Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza over the weekend was noteworthy even for a conflict remarkably blood-soaked for journalists, leaving some experts to marvel that any news at all emerges from the territory.

An Al Jazeera executive said Monday that it won’t back down from covering what is going on there and called for news organizations to step up and recruit more journalists. A total of 184 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel in the Gaza war since its start in October 2023, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That compares to the 18 journalists and media workers killed so far in the Russia-Ukraine war, CPJ said.

Aside from rare guided tours, Israel has barred international media from covering the 22-month war in Gaza. News organizations instead rely largely on Palestinian Gaza residents and ingenuity to show the world what is happening there. Israel often questions the affiliations and biases of Palestinian journalists but doesn’t permit others in.

“You simply are in awe when stories show up,” said Jane Ferguson, a veteran war correspondent and founder of Noosphere, an independent platform for journalists. She can’t recall a conflict that has been more difficult for reporters to cover, and she’s reported from South Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan.

Correspondent Anas al-Sharif knew he was a target, and left behind a message to be delivered upon his death. He and seven other people — six of them journalists — were killed in an air strike outside of Gaza City’s largest hospital complex on Sunday. Israel swiftly claimed responsibility, saying without producing evidence that al-Sharif had led a Hamas cell. It was a claim the news organization and al-Sharif had denied.

The toll of journalists in Gaza has been high

Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press, BBC News and Reuters are among the organizations regularly reporting from Gaza. An Aug. 7 AP dispatch vividly described the hunger faced by many in Gaza: “A single bowl of eggplant stewed in watery tomato juice must sustain Sally Muzhed’s family of six for the day. She calls it moussaka, but it’s a pale echo of the fragrant, lawyered, meat-and-vegetable dish that once filled Gaza’s kitchens with its aroma.”

Other recent AP reports carried images and text reporting from the aftermath of an Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church, and a profile of an 18-year-old aspiring doctor now trying to survive sheltered in a tent.

Journalists from The Washington Post and the Guardian recently accompanied a Jordanian relief mission and took images of Gaza from the air, despite some restrictions from Israel. The Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo wrote: “Seen from the air, Gaza looks like the ruins of an ancient civilization, brought to light after centuries of darkness.”

None of the organizations match the power and immediacy of Al Jazeera, however, in part because their correspondents have been in front of cameras. They’ve also paid the heaviest price: CPJ estimates that 11 journalists and media workers affiliated with AJ have been killed in the Gaza conflict, more than any other single organization.

In a social media post written in June to be sent if he was killed, al-Sharif wrote that “I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification — so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent.”

In another posting on X on Aug. 10, the day that he was killed, al-Sharif wrote of the challenges covering the aftermath of one attack. He said he lost his strength and ability to express himself when he arrived at the scene.

“Body parts and blood were all around us, and corpses were scattered on top of each other,” he wrote. “Tell me what words and phrases could help any journalist describe this horrific image. When I told you on air that it was an ‘indescribable scene,’ I was truly helpless in the face of this horrific sight.”

Al Jazeera calls for other news organizations to come forward

Salah Negm, news director at Al Jazeera English, said Monday it is very difficult to get people in to Gaza. But it is full of educated people and those with training in journalism who can help get stories out. He called on other news organizations to step up.

“We get the news from several sources on the ground in Gaza — not only journalists but also doctors, hospitals, civil servants, aid workers,” Negm said. “A lot of people in Gaza talk to us.”

Many of the journalists working in Gaza are facing the same struggles to find food, for themselves and their families, as the people they are covering. Noosphere’s Ferguson said she’s never before had to ask a reporter whether she had enough food for herself and her child.

In an interview in May on “Democracy Now!,” 22-year-old journalist Abubaker Abed described the difficult decision he made to leave Gaza to pursue his education in Ireland. Not only was he suffering from malnutrition, he said, but his mother was concerned that his work as a journalist would make him and his family targets.

“If I stayed, I would die,” he said.

Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said she’s concerned about the implications for journalists in future conflicts if what is happening in Gaza is allowed to continue without international condemnation that has real teeth.

“They’re essentially admitting in public to what amounts to a war crime,” Ginsberg said, “and they can do that because none of the other attacks on journalists have had any consequences. not in this war and not prior. It’s not surprising that it can act with this level of impunity because no international government has really taken it to task.”

Given all that they face, “to me, the most remarkable thing is that journalists are continuing to cover (Gaza) at all,” she said.

___

Laurie Kellman and Danica Kirk in London, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Sam Metz in Jerusalem contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.