TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Another Palestinian journalist was killed on Sunday, July 21, 2024, in an Israeli attack in the central Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll to 162 since October 7, 2023, Anadolu Agency reported.

Medical sources at Al-Awda Hospital in the central Gaza Strip told Anadolu Agency that Israeli soldiers targeted the Ghorab family home north of Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.

The Israeli attack killed journalist Moatasem Ghorab and four members of her family, including two daughters, bringing the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7 to 162, sources said.

Previously, on Tuesday, July 16, 2024, Mohammad Meshmesh, program director at Al-Aqsa Voice Radio was reportedly killed in an Israeli attack.

In a press statement, the media office said: “The number of journalist martyrs has risen to 160 since the start of the genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, following the martyrdom of our colleague Mohammad Abdullah Meshmesh, Program Director of Al-Aqsa Voice Radio.”

Meshmesh was martyred in the Israeli massacre targeting Al-Razi School in Nuseirat camp, central Gaza, which resulted in 23 martyrs and dozens injured.

The Israel-Gaza war has taken an unprecedented toll on Gaza journalists since Israel declared war on Hamas following its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Meanwhile, on July 19, 2024, a preliminary investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) showed at least 108 journalists and media workers were among the more than 39,000 people killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began collecting data in 1992.

Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks when they try to cover the conflict during Israel's ground offensive, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and widespread power outages. This makes it increasingly difficult to document the situation, and CPJ is investigating nearly 350 additional cases of potential killings, arrests, and injuries.

“Since the war in Gaza began, journalists have paid the ultimate price - their lives - for their reporting. Without protection, equipment, an international presence, communications, or food and water, they are still doing their important work to tell the world the truth,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York.

“Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced into exile, we lose pieces of the truth. Those responsible for these casualties face two trials: one under international law and one before an unforgiving history.”

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Target of Israeli Attack

Journalists are civilians and are protected by International Law. Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime. In May, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it was seeking arrest warrant applications for Hamas and Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

To date, CPJ has determined that at least three journalists were directly targeted by Israeli forces in killings that CPJ classifies as assassinations, but is still researching details to confirm at least 10 other cases that indicate targeting.

The list published here includes names based on information as of July 19:

- 108 journalists and media workers confirmed dead: 103 Palestinians, two Israelis, and three Lebanese.

- 32 journalists reported injured.

- 2 journalists reported missing.

- 51 journalists reported arrested.

Multiple attacks, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and murder of family members. CPJ is also investigating a number of unconfirmed reports of other journalists killed, missing, detained, injured, or threatened, and damage to media offices and journalists' homes.

The published list includes names based on information obtained from CPJ sources in the region and media reports. It's not always clear whether all of these journalists were covering the conflict at the time of their death, but the CPJ has put them on this list because CPJ is investigating their circumstances.

The list is updated periodically, with names deleted if the CPJ confirms that the media members did not work as journalists at the time they were killed, injured or missing.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have repeatedly told the media that the military did not deliberately target journalists. The IDF also told a number of media in October that they could not guarantee the safety of the journalists. The CPJ has called for an end to the long-standing pattern of impunity in cases of murder of journalists by the IDF.

United Nations experts have voiced concern over the murders of journalists, saying in a statement in February that they are "concerned by the very high number of reporters and media workers who have been killed, attacked, wounded and detained in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, especially in Gaza, in recent months, which have clearly ignored international law."

MIDDLE EAST MONITOR | CPJ

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