Rate at which journalists are being killed in Israel-Hamas war is 'horrific,' experts say

The last thing Palestinian freelance journalist Duaa Jabbour wrote online before she, her husband and their children were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their home in southern Gaza on Dec. 9 was, "To survive every day is exhausting."

Jabbour is one of at least 79 journalists and media workers who have died in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023. Israeli journalists killed by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel account for four of those, Lebanese journalists for three and Palestinian journalists for the rest, according to reporting by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

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Journalists have died in the Israel-Hamas war at a rate of about one per day — a number that organizations like CPJ and IFJ say is unparalleled.

"It has been horrific in ways that no previous conflict has really prepared us for," Tim Dawson, deputy general secretary at IFJ, told CTVNews.ca in an interview over Zoom on Wednesday.

"The rate of one death a day, or thereabouts, is without precedent," he said.

By comparison, Dawson said 63 journalists died during the 20-year-long Vietnam War. The war in Yugoslavia, which lasted 10 years, saw 140 journalists killed.

According to Sherif Mansour, Middle East and North Africa program co-ordinator at CPJ, the media workers killed in Gaza since Oct. 7 have been a mix of freelance and staff writers, photographers and videographers, working for independent outlets, as well as outlets affiliated with both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

Most have died with their families in Israeli airstrikes on their homes or along with other civilians in airstrikes on hospitals, refugee camps, streets and other public spaces. Some were shot.

"There are cases of journalists who have been killed while wearing a press sign and having no close contact to a crossfire," Mansour told CTVNews.ca in an interview over Zoom on Wednesday.

In some instances, Palestinian journalists have lost their families to Israeli military airstrikes and continued to report on the destruction in Gaza afterward. Al Jazeera Arabic Gaza correspondent Wael Dahdouh became part of the tragedy he'd been reporting on when his wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in October by an Israeli air raid that hit the house they were sheltering in.

Dahdouh was, himself, injured in an Israeli strike on a school in Khan Younis on Dec. 15 along with Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa. While Dahdouh was able to run for help, Abu Daqqa bled to death before ambulances could reach him, The Associated Press reported.

Then, on Sunday, an apparent Israeli airstrike killed Dahdouh's son Hamza, also an Al Jazeera journalist, along with a freelance journalist named Mustafa Tharaya. 

Journalists' lives are protected in times of war, along with all civilian life, under the 1949 Geneva Convention, which states that attacks intentionally targeting journalists and other civilians constitute war crimes.

International human rights laws, set out in the convention and reaffirmed in UN Security Council Resolution 2222, state that warring parties should "do their utmost to end impunity for such criminal acts," instruct their military and police forces to give necessary and reasonable assistance to journalists when they so request, and not restrict journalists in their reporting.

The Israeli government blames Hamas for civilian casualties in Gaza because the militant group operates in densely populated residential areas, but Israel's military rarely comments on individual strikes, The Associated Press reported.

However, as the death toll in Gaza has mounted to more than 20,000 people in the weeks since Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people in Israel and took some 240 hostage, public support for the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) military campaign in Gaza has fallen in countries around the world.

Moreover, both Dawson and Mansour believe there is evidence to support charges that many journalists killed by the IDF in Gaza and the West Bank, both during the current conflict and prior to it, were deliberately targeted.

CTVNews.ca reached out to the Israeli government for comment but did not receive a response by deadline. This article will be updated with the government response if it is received.

Dawson said he's spoken to Palestinian journalists who said they'd received phone calls from people purporting to be from the IDF who threatened violence against them and their families, "and subsequently, that is what appears to happen."

"My preference would be to see what has happened tested in an actual court of law where evidence can be weighed and it can be interrogated by both sides," he said. "When you look at the numbers, it's impossible really not to think that Gazan journalists have got it right when they say they've been deliberately targeted."

Mansour said that if the IDF has intentionally targeted journalists during the war, it would be consistent with a pattern CPJ claims extends back well beyond Oct. 7.

"The fact is Gaza was dangerous for journalists before this war," Mansour said.

CPJ has raised the alarm about the threats against journalists in Gaza and the West Bank several times over the years, including in a report released last May, a year after Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was fatally shot while covering an IDF raid in the West Bank's Jenin camp.

The IDF eventually issued an apology and conceded that there was a "high possibility" Abu Akleh was shot by an Israeli soldier, but only after the CPJ report alleged the Israeli military had taken no accountability over its killings of at least 20 journalists over the previous two decades.

"Her case was not an anomaly," Mansour said. "She's one of 20 journalists who were killed covering IDF activities, and 13 of those journalists were killed while having media insignia and press insignia." 

Both IFJ and CPJ have called for immediate independent investigations into all journalist deaths in the region since Oct. 7.

"I think it's perfectly plausible that war crimes have been committed," Dawson said. "I mean, it would be a war crime when the International Criminal Court determines that a war crime has been committed, (but) I think there's a case to answer beyond any shadow of a doubt."

Dawson said he also wants to see Hamas release the rest of the hostages taken during its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, including at least one journalist, and that no organization or government should be able to target civilians and journalists with impunity — that is, without accountability or consequences.

Reporters Without Borders has also called on the International Criminal Court to investigate both Israel and Hamas for the killings of journalists on, and in the days since, Oct. 7.

A 'CHILLING EFFECT'

The fact remains, journalists are killed with impunity so commonly worldwide that CPJ has created and maintains the Global Impunity Index of the countries with the worst records of prosecuting those who kill journalists.

Topping the list in 2023 were Syria, Somalia, Haiti, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, Philippines, Myanmar, Brazil, Pakistan and India. Journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas war are not included in this year's index because their deaths fell outside of the data period used to calculate the index.

Bill Killorn is interim executive director at Toronto-based Journalists for Human Rights. Killorn was working closely with journalists in the Philippines in 2023 when he learned about an intimidation tactic used against journalists known as red-tagging, which can have deadly consequences. Politicians red-tag journalists critical of them or their policies by labelling them as either a communist, terrorist or both. Either is a dangerous designation.

"It has a chilling effect in more urban settings, but in rural settings, where there's a little bit less accountability, it could be very dangerous and lead to violence and killing," Killorn said.

According to CPJ, 159 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Philippines since the organization began tracking killings in 1992.

The things that make journalists targets, Killorn said, are the same things that make them vital to the functioning of a healthy society.

Journalists document trends, crimes, disasters and atrocities so that the parties involved can be held accountable for their actions or inaction. Their work also helps ensure citizens are informed and empowered to vote for policies they believe will improve the world we all live in.

"The majority of us rely on what's reported in the media to form opinions on what's happening, and then use that information to put pressure on our government to act one way or the other," Killorn said. "When stories are put out that run contrary to the opinion of people in power, sometimes that can be really dangerous for journalists."

Dawson said freelance journalists are even more vulnerable than those working closely with established media outlets.

"It makes a big difference in a conflict situation, if you are clearly and strongly affiliated with a major news platform," he said.

IFJ provides safety training to journalists working in combat zones, and one element of that training involves making sure an editor is always aware of their movements, of where they are supposed to be at any given time while working.

"Most freelancers don't have somebody who is going to be micro-watching what they're doing. If you're kidnapped, and your kidnappers think that you have the New York Times behind you, they're going to be weighing in to try and get you out," he said.

"But it's a very different affair to, you know, you're a completely untethered individual simply hoping to find some good stories and tell some truth." 

Due to a lack of access to Gaza for international journalists — aside from tightly controlled trips by journalists embedded with the IDF — Mansour and Dawson said Palestinian journalism is the only window most people have into the conditions people in the enclave are living, and dying, in.

"The only way that we're ever going to know what is happening in this highly contested enclave of land is through the eyes and ears of journalists," Dawson said. "Which is why I think it's absolutely critical that we all do what we can to support those journalists in their work."

Mansour said CPJ is calling on Israel and the international community to protect the lives of journalists, respect media credentials and insignia, grant international news organizations access to Gaza and investigate attacks on journalists in order to end impunity.

"These journalists provide first-hand testimonial accounts about areas we have no other access to information for," he said. "So we need them and we rely on them to have accurate, timely and independent information, in order to understand the war … in order to understand the motives of the warring parties, and the impacts of their policies."

Data visualizations by CTVNews.ca Data Journalist Charlie Buckley