Why documenting the deaths of journalists in Gaza is important to ensure justice
London: Excel spreadsheets don't have the power of shock every day. However, the clarity of the ever-updated document documenting the names of all journalists killed in Gaza since October 2023 brings back a massive scale of Israel's unprecedented murder of journalists.
As of Sunday, 198 journalists have been killed in Gaza over the past two years. Since the start of the war, each name and date and location of death have been faithfully documented by a New York-based committee to protect journalists.
Scrolling through the Excel document in CPJ and using clean, clean columns and columns to highlight the chaos and suffering they prove is similar to visiting a digital wall of memory.
More than that, each journalist's credentials are listed, and the details of their deaths verified by the CPJ make it a proof.
The first recorded death was the death of Ibrahim Marzuk, a Palestinian media worker in the logistics division of Gaza, Palestinian authorities' broadcaster Today TV.
Marzog and his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike on October 24, 2023 at his home in the Altaffa district of Gaza.
The recent victims were more than a dozen civilians and health workers, with five journalists killed on August 25th and three tank shells at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.
Ahed Abu Aziz, Hussam Al-Masri, Mariam Dagga, Mohammed Salama and Moaz Abu Taha worked for international outlets such as Middle Ease, The Associated Press, Al Jazeera and Reuters.
Reuters said that before the attack, the photographer Al Masri had notified the Israeli Defense Forces of where he was, but this was not enough to protect him.
At 49, he was survived by his wife and four children. They live in tents and, like everyone else in Gaza, they struggle to find food.
The UN Human Rights Office said the killing “should shock the world, not shock the shock of shock, but should fall into actions that demand accountability and justice.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the attack as an “accident.” Meanwhile, the IDF said it had launched an internal investigation, adding that it “repents of harm to individuals not involved and does not target journalists.”
The CPJ has submitted a series of questions regarding attacks on the IDF, calling for an independent investigation.
CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement on August 28th:
CPJ, an independent nonprofit founded in 1981 by a group of US correspondents, believes that in order to promote freedom of press around the world, it “defends the rights of journalists and defends the right to report the news without fear of retaliation.”
The work is cut out. In August alone, he highlighted and defended individual journalists facing investigations, arrests and attacks in countries such as Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Somaliland, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Iraq and Ethiopia.
But what I've witnessed in Gaza over the past two years has surpassed anything in my 40 years of experience.
Despite Israel's attempts to smear the journalists they killed, some of them were Hamas operatives, “They were all journalists,” Sarah Kuda, CPJ's Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, told Arab News.
“They studied journalism, graduated like normal people, and worked in a variety of media.”
The CPJ will verify and verify the qualifications of all journalists killed before reporting and documenting deaths. Of the previous deaths, 65 were freelancers and 124 were staff working in a wide range of organizations, both within and outside the Palestinian territory.
The 23 victims were women.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, “The international media and the international community have decided to turn a blind eye to what local media and journalists are seeing and saying, and the footage they are sending. They want to believe in official stories from Israeli and Israeli media.
“But there is no way for the international community and the international media to deny that it's happening on earth after what happened in August. We're seeing more voices, starting to hear more condemnations and seeking accountability.”
She paid tribute to the courage of the Gaza journalists.
“It's not just courage, it's a sense of responsibility. If they stop reporting, they know that the truth will die, and no one knows what's going on.
“This is part of being a journalist and being a witness to the truth, and that's why it's so important that they do it, even if they sacrifice their lives, because they need to make sure their deaths and the deaths of those they love don't happen, so they need to spend their lives on them.”
Journalists often report from war zones for a few weeks, probably before returning home again. But the Gaza journalist wrote, “We document the war that they are alive. On a daily basis, they live this war.
“You're back to the tent. You're evacuated. You have no food, and you're afraid that you'll be killed anytime, and you're afraid that your family, your loved ones and your colleagues will be targeted and killed.”
She said there is no doubt that journalists are being deliberately targeted by Israel.
“This is why Israel wants to kill witnesses and they are killing them because they want to hide the truth in order to hide the evidence.
“But one day justice must happen, thanks to these journalists, witnesses who document all of Israel's war crimes.”
