Committee to Protect Journalists report says Israel also to blame for 81% of ‘intentionally targeted’ journalist killings
In several cases Israel has acknowledged targeting journalists in Gaza that it said had links to Hamas, without providing verifiable evidence. International news organisations have strongly denied that reporters who were killed had links to militants. The CPJ called such allegations by Israel “deadly smears”.
Its report said at least 104 of the 129 journalists killed died in connection with conflicts. Apart from Gaza and Yemen, the deadliest countries for journalists included Sudan, where nine were killed, and Mexico, where six died. Three journalists died in the Philippines and four Ukrainian journalists were killed by Russian forces, it said.
Among those killed in Gaza was the Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, who died in August while operating a live video feed at Nasser hospital.
During the attack, Anas al-Sharif, who was one of Al Jazeera’s most recognisable faces in Gaza, was killed too. Al-Sharif left a poignant final message entrusting his family to the public, specifically mentioning his daughter, Sham.
“This is my will and my final message,’’ read the statement which was published posthumously on Anas al-Sharif’s X account. “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.”
That strike also killed four other journalists, as reported in the same article.
“Western Values”!
Is there like a database that keeps track of things like this? Not just deaths, but also things like arrests, suspicious disappearances and the like. I feel like that would be a very useful tool for these types of discussions. I’m sure the top performers are going to be the ones we suspect the most, but having the ability to visualize the data can give some pretty good insights nonetheless.
The scope of the data is not perfect, but RSF is probably the best option we have right now:
They’ve shared data on disappearances too in their annual reports, but not sure if they have anything ‘live’ there.
They release a yearly report too, the top contenders are usually no surprise as you did expect. For last year, Israel was on top followed by Mexico for journalist killings, with Sudan trailing way behind. China is at the top for putting journalists in prison and there’s no danger at all of them losing the first place spot, with Russia coming in second, but then gets kinda surprising with Myanmar pushing really hard to get that #2 spot.
Was searching for better data and just found this, you won’t like it, but you’ll appreciate the data: https://www.unesco.org/en/safety-journalists/observatory/statistics
Yes, I’m sure Israel is keeping track of all this so they can give medal to top performers in IDF.
Israel is a disgusting group for sure.