The Public Source Condemns Israeli Assassination Threats Against Gaza Journalists
On Wednesday, October 23, 2024, the Israeli military issued what can only be described as a kill list of six journalists working in northern Gaza, accusing them of having ties to militant factions. These allegations should be understood as part of the Israeli settler colony’s broader war on journalism and on truth itself, aimed at preventing the world from witnessing the unspeakable atrocities it has been committing against the Palestinian people.
This decades-old tactic is a clear attempt to silence anyone who opposes Israel’s actions by brandishing them as “terrorists” and is used to justify the escalating war against Palestinian and Lebanese media workers.
The Al Jazeera Media Network, for whom all six journalists work, vehemently condemned the allegations against the journalists: Hossam Shabat, Anas Al-Sharif, Ashraf Saraj, Alaa Salama, Ismail Abu Omar, and Talal Aruki, describing them as unfounded.
Palestinian journalists have been doing the critical work of documenting and reporting on Israel’s deadly siege of northern Gaza and its ongoing campaign of mass extermination and ethnic cleansing of the 400,000 Palestinians trapped there. Palestinian officials, journalists, medical staff, aid workers, and others have faced similar accusations intended to provide cover for Israel’s genocide.
Many international media organizations, however, have reported on the story as routine, repeating the allegations without even acknowledging Israel’s history of fabricating evidence and forging documents to justify its war crimes. Israel has accused civilian bodies — such as hospitals, schools, and aid agencies — of being militant strongholds as a prelude to destroying them, and has accused doctors, teachers, aid workers and others of the same as justification for their murder. Time and time again, it fails to provide evidence to back up its claims.
The Public Source views the deafening silence of the international and regional press as a grave affront to Palestinian journalists in particular and to journalism more broadly.
While press freedom organizations have decried the threats made against these and other Palestinian journalists, we are deeply troubled by their framing of this highly sensitive issue. The Committee to Protect Journalists, for example, commented on X that it was “aware of accusations made by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against several journalists in Gaza,” acknowledging that Israel has repeatedly made similar claims against journalists in the past without providing credible evidence.
The problem with such rhetoric is that it tacitly assumes that, were the accusations that the journalists are or were affiliated with armed political factions true, the journalists in question would, de facto, be rendered legitimate targets of war.
Under international law, journalists are considered non-combatants and are afforded protected status as civilians, civilian objects, and civilian infrastructure. The deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime, regardless of a journalist’s political affiliations or any prior military activity outside their journalistic duties. Only current and direct military activity can strip that protection.
Israel has a brutal history of targeting Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza and the West Bank, with the high-profile killing of prominent Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in May 2022 being but one of them. Earlier this year, Israel banned the news organization from operating in the territories of 1948 Palestine, and in May 2021, an Israeli airstrike flattened a Gaza media building that had housed Al Jazeera and the Associated Press for over a decade.
Israel has killed 182 journalists and media workers in Gaza alone since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, according to Palestinian officials. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Sans Frontières set the number of journalists killed in Gaza at just over or under 130, a lower figure which nonetheless translates into a mortality rate of more than 10 percent. The data gathered by CPJ reveal it to be the deadliest period for journalists since the organization first began collecting data in 1992.
Palestinian journalists are reporting on the life-and-death struggle of their people. The Israelis see this work as a powerful weapon against genocide. By exposing Israel, its actions and crimes, these journalists are shedding light on one of the most evil events in modern history — genocide. Their reports, their stories, and their work under the harshest conditions are a testimony to the real purpose of journalism.
Israel hopes the world will turn its gaze away from the slaughter, misery, and cruelty it is inflicting on Palestine. If “speaking truth to power” is the calling of true journalism, then these reporters are the model of what all journalists should aspire to be. Instead, they are under threat of starvation and death.
Despite the heightened dangers facing the six publicly targeted journalists, they have remained steadfast in their duty to cover and report on the increasingly horrifying news coming out of northern Gaza. The Public Source salutes their work, their resilience, and their commitment to documenting their people’s painful stories, and we affirm our unwavering and unconditional solidarity with them and all of our Palestinian colleagues.