Gaza- Between murder and the threat of it, Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip are surrounded by great dangers, which force them to carry their lives on their hands as they move in the field, covering developments in the Israeli war on the besieged Strip, which is becoming increasingly fierce as it enters the second month in a row.
In addition to the direct crimes committed against the occupation army Journalists and their families Resulting in martyrs and injuries, Israel and supporting organizations carried out incitement unprecedented in its intensity and danger, which the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate considered “a call to target and kill them.”
The Foreign Ministry website and Israeli media published the names and photos of Palestinian journalists, a number of whom work for international news agencies, and accused them – based on a report issued by the “Honest Reporting” organization aligned with the occupying state – of being aware of the date of the attack carried out by the resistance movement. The Islamic Revolution (Hamas) attacked the “Gaza enveloping settlements” on October 7th.
In the target focus
Palestinian journalists feel a real danger of this incitement being translated into crimes committed by the occupation forces, whether against them or against their families, as happened with journalist Muthanna Al-Najjar, who was one of the first journalists to be subjected to incitement amounting to an attempt at explicit physical liquidation from Israeli circles with the start of the Battle of the “Al-Aqsa Flood.” .
Since the first days of the Israeli war on Gaza, Al-Najjar’s name has been appearing on media sites and social media platforms in Israel, due to his appearance inside the “Gaza envelope” settlements in video clips published by a local website he works for.
The matter did not stop at incitement, as, in the first week of the war, Israeli warplanes targeted his home and the home of his wife’s family, east of the city of Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Al-Najjar’s family survived an air strike that targeted his house in the town of Khuza’a, adjacent to the Israeli security fence, east of the city of Khan Yunis. After his wife took refuge with their children in her family’s home in the neighboring town of Bani Suhaila, an air strike targeted them within just 24 hours, resulting in martyrs and wounded, including his father. His wife and her brother.
Following this targeting, Al-Najjar told Al Jazeera Net that he feels real concern for his life and his family members, not for a crime he committed, but rather as punishment for performing his professional journalistic mission.
Dr. Tahseen Al-Astal, deputy head of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, told Al Jazeera Net that the escalating Israeli incitement heralds new crimes against journalists, describing what Al-Najjar and his colleagues are exposed to as “programmed incitement” led by official levels of the occupation government, and reinforced by reports from organizations aligned with it and hostile to Palestinian rights.
Incitement to murder
During the aggression, the incitement of these organizations against Palestinian journalists – working for international news agencies – led to these agencies temporarily suspending them from work until the accusations against them were investigated.
One of them told Al Jazeera Net, preferring to hide his identity, that an inflammatory report against him was published by the “Honest Reporting” Zionist organization aligned with Israel, accusing him of “anti-Semitism.” He was temporarily suspended from work, and his attempts to defend himself and dissuade the agency from its decision were unsuccessful, so that he could work. In covering developments in the war on Gaza.
Al-Astal said that journalists in Gaza work in a very dangerous field environment, and great pressure is exerted on them as a result of the incitement of such an organization biased toward the occupation. He strongly defended Palestinian journalists who have proven their professional bias for decades.
The incitement campaigns against Al-Najjar and his colleagues claim that they “had prior knowledge” of the attack that launched the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle. The Deputy Head of the Journalists Syndicate said, “The events of October 7 lasted for a few hours, during which some of the settlements around the Gaza Strip were open to everyone. It is natural for journalists to arrive there to document what is happening, and any claim that they had advance knowledge of them is malicious and aims to incite their targeting and an attempt to justify crimes.” occupation against them.
Al-Astal said that challenging the professionalism of journalists, especially those who work with foreign agencies and media, whether by accusing them of association with Palestinian factions, or of “anti-Semitism,” aims to “empty” these agencies and media from the perspective of coverage and the Palestinian narrative, and limit them to the occupation and the “false narratives” it issues. And misleading.”
In a statement, the union called on news agencies and foreign media outlets to seriously investigate and exercise professionalism and responsibility before taking any decisions or measures against Palestinian journalists, and called for “providing international field protection for journalists, ensuring a safe working environment for them, and accelerating the opening of an international investigation into all crimes against them and providing Their killers and their instigators will be brought before international courts.”
The worst in the history of international journalism
The union said that last October “was the worst in the history of international journalism due to the number of victims among journalists who suffered as a result of the massacres of the Israeli occupation forces.”
According to the Syndicate’s Press Freedoms Committee, “40 Palestinian journalists rose during this month, in addition to an unspecified number of social media activists, who were targeted by the occupation with killing, arrest, bombing, and persecution.”
The occupation army targeted about 62 media institutions with bombing and total or partial destruction, and destroyed more than 70 homes of journalists and their families in intentional targeting operations that claimed the lives of about 200 martyrs from the journalists’ families.
The head of the union’s freedoms committee, Muhammad al-Laham, believes that the number of victims of the occupation’s crimes and violations may be greater and more dangerous than what was mentioned, due to the difficulty of working accurately in Gaza, due to the aggression that limits movement and close follow-up.
Al-Lahham relied on the reports of international institutions monitoring violations in the world, “which in its history have never witnessed the killing of 44 journalists in one month at the global level, as it recorded an average of 50 journalists killed annually in the whole world.”
In 2021 and 2022, 86 victims of journalists were recorded according to international institutions, meaning that in October, Palestinian journalists lost more than half of the journalists who were victims of war crimes and violations within two years, which confirms, according to Al-Lahham, that “this month is the worst ever in the history of crimes.” Universal rights for journalists.
The head of the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory for Human Rights, Dr. Rami Abdo, told Al Jazeera Net that the occupying state is working to “cover up” its crimes against journalists in Gaza, by killing and targeting their families inside homes, through a counter-campaign led by what he called “a machine that works around the clock and pursues a policy of lying.” Then lie.”
