More than 250 media outlets in over 70 countries have staged a front page protest highlighting the killing of more than 200 journalists in Israel’s war on Gaza, the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) media freedom group says.
“At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no-one left to keep you informed,” RSF general director Thibaut Bruttin said in a statement on Monday.
The protest, also supported by the global campaign movement Avaaz, was featured on the websites of news outlets including Al Jazeera, British newspaper The Independent, French newspapers La Croix and L’Humanite, and German newspapers Tageszeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau, according to RSF.
About 220 journalists have been killed during Israel’s war in Gaza since it began on 7 October 2023, according to RSF data.
Independent analysis by Al Jazeera reveals that at least 278 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel over the past 22 months, including 10 from the network.
Monday’s protest was staged a week after five journalists – Al Jazeera’s Mohammad Salama, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, freelance journalist Mariam Abu Daqqa working for The Associated Press, Ahmed Abu Aziz and Moaz Abu Taha – were killed in two Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Earlier in August, six journalists, including Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif, were killed in an Israeli air strike on a tent sheltering media workers outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital. The strike targeted al-Sharif.
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 notes.
The media group said it has filed four complaints at the International Criminal Court for war crimes it said the Israeli army has committed against journalists in Gaza.
International media have been denied free access to the Gaza Strip since the war broke out.
A few selected outlets have embedded reporters with Israeli army units operating in Gaza under the condition of strict military censorship.
Israel has killed at least 63 459 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s ministry of health.
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