Gaza war also deadly for journalists, independent reporting increasingly difficult

NOS News•today, 10:09

Just yesterday, seven journalists were injured in an Israeli airstrike on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa hospital. According to the Israeli military, the hospital houses a command center of Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas. That contradicts its use of hospitals as bases. Due to a lack of independent reporters on site, an accurate picture is difficult to obtain.

Since the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Gaza war, 95 journalists and media company employees have been killed in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Of them, 90 are Palestinian, 2 Israeli and 3 Lebanese. NRC counted even more deaths last week: 103.

95 or 103, both figures represent a harrowing record: more journalists were killed in the first three months of the war than ever in a single country in an entire year.

The journalistic organization Journalists Without Borders (RSF) accuses the Israeli army of deliberately attacking journalists. The CPJ also expressed its concerns about this. In doing so, the army is said to be deliberately engaging in intimidation to make independent reporting from Gaza impossible.

Israel strongly denies that it deliberately bombs journalists. The military often claims that killed journalists are affiliated with Hamas. For every new victim, Israel promises a thorough investigation. Yet press organizations cast doubt on these statements.

Those doubts already existed before the war in Gaza. An infamous example is the death of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank in 2022. Abu Akleh also wore a shard vest with ‘PRESS’ written on it. Israel denied intent and did not prosecute the soldier who fired the fatal shot.

Wael Dahdouh is a symbol of the dire situation of journalists in Gaza at the moment. The Al-Jazeera correspondent lost his wife, two children and a grandchild in a bombing of a refugee camp in October last year. Dahdouh’s regular cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, was killed in December.

His eldest son Hamza, also a journalist, was killed by an Israeli drone strike in January. Dahdouh is said to have ‘piloted a flying device’ that posed a danger to the Israeli army. Later the army stated that he was also a member of Islamic Jihad. A claim that was substantiated with a photo, which according to the BBC was of such low quality that its authenticity cannot be guaranteed.

Correspondent Daisy Mohr spoke with Wael Dahdouh during his rehabilitation in Qatar

Injured Al Jazeera correspondent: ‘There are no more foreign eyes in Gaza’

Research by the Washington Post into the drone images of Hamza Dahdouh now also calls into question Israel’s statement about the danger he allegedly posed to the army.

TNO recently investigated the death of a journalist from the Reuters news agency in Lebanon. It showed that an Israeli tank fired at the clearly recognizable journalists. And the NVJ recently sent a letter to the Israeli ambassador in the Netherlands. Motto: Israel must do a better job of protecting journalists. According to the organization, the ‘complexity of the war’ would in no way be a reason to attack journalists.

It is the paradox of the Gaza war: as the eyes of the world focus on the territory, the view becomes blurrier. Al-Jazeera only does live reporting from Gaza via audio, live on screen would make reporters an easier target. Many news organizations do not have correspondents on site. Foreign journalists would like to enter Gaza, but are refused by Israel. They are sometimes only allowed inside under the supervision of the Israeli army, where the army determines where and what journalists see.

As a result, a lot of news from the area depends on local journalists or Palestinians who share images via social media such as Instagram and TikTok. It is one of the reasons that three Palestinian journalists were recently nominated for the Press Freedom Prize.