Deadly work

Journalists across the world risk their lives daily to report in conflict zones and all too often become the story. This is especially true on Gaza where from Oct.7, 2023, more than 141 journalists and media workers were among the 50,000 slain in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This toll has made the Gaza war the “deadliest for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.”

After the CPJ issued its report, another five journalists were slain as they slept in their broadcasting vehicle, marked with “Press” and “TV,” parked outside the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza. Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, Ayman al-Jadi, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed al-La- da’a were deliberately targeted. They worked for al-Quds Today, a television channel affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which partners Hamas in the battle against Israel. While their employers are involved in the conflict, the journalists were no more parti pri than Israeli television channels covering the war story. All journalists should be treated as “civilians,” argued the CJP.

The CJP has investigated seven cases of journalists and one media worker “Who were directly targeted by Israeli forces in killings which the CJP classifies as murder” and is still seeking confirmation of at least 20 other cases. While the Israeli army argues it does not target journalists, it says it cannot guarantee the safety of journalists. The CJP has called for “an end to the long-standing pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the [Israeli army].”

The CPJ said in December that 75 reporters have been arrested in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza since the Gaza war began. Others were assaulted, threatened, and censored.

Since October 7th 2023, over 141 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the west bank, Israel and Lebanon, according to the committee to protect journalists.

The world pubic relies for news on Palestinian journalists based in Gaza because Israel does not permit the international press to enter the strip except briefly when embedded with the Israeli army and their reports are subject to censorship. Consequently, Palestinian journalists are not only paying the price with limbs and lives but also are accused of bias. Being bombed and shelled could cause a certain amount of bias but, despite the fog of war, they try to report facts to Palestinian, Arab, and international media.

The situation in Israel is very different. Four Israeli journalists were killed and one retired journalist was taken hostage on Oct.7, 2023, during Hamas’s attack on southern Israel. They were not engaging in journalism at the time but living at home or attending a music festival. No Israeli journalists were killed, injured, or detained during the war on Gaza Israel has conducted in reprisal.

With the exception of the liberal daily “Haaretz” and dissident websites, Israeli media are telling the story the Israeli authorities promote, and Israelis want to hear. Writing on the Washington-based Dawn website, Israel’s heroic truth teller Gideon Levy, stated, “On Oct.7, 2023, the Israeli media ceased to be journalists and instead became an agent of nationalistic and militant emotions, stirring up and inciting, a ministry of propaganda, a public relations agency for the army, responsible for elevating the morale of a public at war.” He accused the Israeli media of be- coming “the most important agent for dehumanization of the Palestinians, without the need for censor- ship or a government directing it to do so [self-censor].”

Israelis learn of “precision strikes” on “terrorist” targets and command centres, and safe evacuations. They are not aware of or are indifferent to the fate of innocent women and children killed and wounded in “precision strikes “or of civilians shot by snipers as they walk on “safe routes” to “safe zones” which are bombed. On Dec.28, the BBC interviewed a retired Israeli general who said repeatedly, “We never target civilians.”

Commenting in “Haaretz, Tamer Nafar – Palestinian-Israeli rapper, actor, and activist – wrote that Israelis must have a “willingness to hear. If people don’t want to know, they won’t know” even if information is presented in Hebrew. He described a “yes, but” route Israelis use to escape upsetting facts. He cited this among several examples: “More than 300 houses were demolished in Lod” – “Yes, but Arabs build without permits.”

They build without permits because they cannot obtain permits.

In November, the Israeli government decided to punish “Haaretz’s” truth telling by banning the use of public funds for advertising or subscriptions. Anat Saragusti wrote in “Haaretz” on Nov.26, this was “not a stand-alone event.” She cited the case of investigative journalist Ilana Dayan who was “brutally attacked when she ‘dared’ to tell CNN’s Christian Amanpour that Israeli media didn’t show the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” She was “bombarded by incitement, hate speech, threats on social media and via text messages to her private cell phone, along with a clear delegitimization of her right to express the facts.”

Saragusti said these developments were “part of a well-crafted masterplan by [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu and his government to destroy press freedom in Israel and the independent media in this country.” She said this plan was put in action in 2022 as soon as this government took office. It began with proposing legislation in the Knesset that would close the public broadcaster Kan, give the government the right to shut down news websites or media that does not toe the line, and control access to the internet. During the war, Israel closed the offices of Al-Jazeera in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and shut down the live Gaza broadcast by the Associated Press since Al-Jazeera aired its coverage. The masterplan also involves smear campaigns against critical journalists and “hostile take-over” of dissenting media by wealthy Netanyahu supporters.

Saragusti observed, “Even if the bills forming the legislative backbone of the Netanyahu masterplan not eventually pass, the harm is already done. The threat is right here, and it already started to have a chilling effect, in the form of self-censorship that is naturally hard to quantify.”

Reporters Without Borders director of campaigns Rebecca Vincent told Al-Jazeera, “Israelis have the right to know what is being done in their name, not least in the war in Gaza. Netanyahu’s government is deliberately working not only to portray a distorted narrative of the war in Gaza, but to tighten state controls on media... This will have devastating longer-term consequences for press freedom in Israel, but also for Israeli democracy.”