On October 25, an early morning Israeli airstrike on southeast Lebanon targeted an area far away from combat-zone, a site known for its camping of journalists. The strike killed three journalists in the compound, leaving several others injured as they slept. The incident surprised many as the rare airstrike hit an area that has been used by the press as a base for covering the war. However, the chilling attack on media space was not an anomaly. Alongside its genocidal campaign in Gaza, Israel has carried a state sponsored scheme to block the ground coverage of its offensive and has relentlessly targeted journalists.
Alongside its genocidal campaign in Gaza, Israel has carried a state sponsored scheme to block the ground coverage of its offensive and has relentlessly targeted journalists.
After a year of aggression over Gazans, the state of Israel has joined the ranks of the countries notorious for letting the killings of journalists go unpunished, a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has revealed. Israel has come up at the top in cases of impunity in the journalistic murders and stands at number 2 after Haiti. According to the Global Impunity Index 2024 released on October 30, with a sheer number of murders of journalists, Israel is the second-worst offender by allowing such killings and letting the perpetrators go on the loose.
Targeted killings: a desperate act by Israel to cover up the genocide
Israel’s premeditated assaults on free media in Gaza and Lebanon in the last year has led it directly to the top which is the first time Israel has appeared in this index since the report’s first publication in 2008. Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at the US-based rights group DAWN says ‘The campaign against journalists reporting on the atrocities only further proves Israel’s desperation to cover up its war crimes and systematic genocide against Palestinians.‘
In the ongoing Israeli offensive on Gaza, CPJ has documented the murder of five journalists – four Palestinian and one Lebanese – for their revealing work on Israeli war crimes. Ten other such targeted murders of journalists are under investigation by CPJ. However, the figure in all possibilities is far higher, although hard to obtain given the difficulty of documenting amid an ongoing onslaught.
The possible targeted killing of three journalists in Lebanon is the latest entry into Israel’s long list of such crimes and an inglorious past of impunity. The war in Gaza and Lebanon has made this year the deadliest time for the press since the CPJ has started reporting on threats to free media for forty years. At least 128 journalists and media workers so far have seen fatal ends, becoming victims of Israeli aggression in the region – in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. The figures from Palestinian officials suggest a higher death toll of 176 journalists in Gaza itself.
Israel has US license to kill journalists and aid workers
Since the US and its western alliance green flagged Israeli aggression post October 7 under the “self-defence” rhetoric, Israel has gone on with a wartime assault on the free press with pre-worked out killings of reporters, illegal arrests, harassment and censorship. A huge part of the slain journalists has been Palestinians in Gaza while scores have been injured, missing, or arrested as reported by international watchdogs.
The sheer number of killings of Press figures by the IDF signals a breakdown of the ‘rules based International order‘ since it is being witnessed in deafening silence by the international community. Even more than that, the United States, the most important player of the international order, shares the fair share of culpability for these killings as it has provided the heavy weaponry and missiles used for the mass killings of the Gazans.
Even more than that, the United States, the most important player of the international order, shares the fair share of culpability for these killings as it has provided the heavy weaponry and missiles used for the mass killings of the Gazans.
Washington annually provides a military aid of $3.8bn to Israel, and the current US President Joe Biden has signed on an additional assistance of $14bn to the US ally to help fund its war. Contrary to public statements, in reality, the US has given Israel a free hand to kill civilians, aid workers, and journalists. It is the United States which has saved Israel from any repercussions on UN level as it used its veto power every time the international bodies sat down with a proposal at the UN Security Council.
Horrified by the Israeli audacity in recent months, Rebecca Vincent, campaign director at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) commented ‘The events of recent days are alarming, and should serve as a wake-up call for the US government and other states that have the power to hold the Israeli government to account and put a stop to this violence.‘
Labelling jounalists as “terrorists”
Recently Israel levelled accusations against multiple Al Jazeera journalists who are based in Gaza of being “operatives” of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. These allegations have almost become a routine exercise for Israeli establishment. As it seems, smearing the journalists– both dead and alive– can cover up the atrocities.
Israelis have regularly used this tactic of calling a journalist a member of Hamas without any evidence. The accusation has rung the bell of fear among journalists as Israel can use this as a justification to “eliminate” these journalists. Al Jazeera in an official statement rejected the Israeli charges. Raed Jarrar says Israel’s accusations against Al Jazeera‘s journalists is a ‘deliberate tactic to intimidate and silence those exposing its ongoing ethnic cleansing and forced displacement in northern Gaza‘.
Journalists covering the war have also faced assaults, threats, and censorship, as well as the constant communications blackouts in Gaza. Foreign reporters are prohibited from entering Gaza as Israel has blocked any entries and the local journalists in the Palestinian territory face the threat of getting killed at any point. In fact, it can be seen as a malicious mechanism put in to obscure the truth about abuses and war crimes carried by the Israeli armed forces.
Foreign reporters are prohibited from entering Gaza as Israel has blocked any entries and the local journalists in the Palestinian territory face the threat of getting killed at any point.
What Israel is doing in this war is a textbook case of covering a genocide. CPJ reports have gone in length describing Israel’s tactics and false smear-campaigns against Palestinian journalists with unsubstantiated “terrorist” labels following their killings.
For Palestinians, Israel’s aim is clear – to stop the world from knowing the immense suffering of Gaza. ‘On the one hand, they’re not allowing international journalists, and on the other hand, they’re assassinating those journalists who are there,‘ says Diana Buttu, a Palestinian advocate.
Impunity is universal in cases of journalistic murders
All 13 countries listed on the index have some common factors causing the irreparable damage to the lives of journalists and making the impunity a universal phenomenon. The erosive factors mostly tend to be an ongoing war or armed conflicts, militant insurgencies, authoritarian governments, criminal gangs, and a weakened rule and law.
The Committee to Protect Journalists underlines globally that in nearly 80 percent cases of killings of journalists, perpetrators go scot-free and no justice is ever delivered. At least 241 such killings have been corroborated with enough evidence proving that these journalists lost their lives for their work and for speaking truth to the power.
Whether it is premeditated or spontaneous, when it comes to the killings of journalists, impunity has become a norm and has entrenched itself into political systems. CPJ reports that four out of five perpetrators of journalist’s murder have not faced the doorways of courts. CPJ has been recording data on journalist killings and imprisonment since 1992. CPJ labels a killing of a journalist as “murder”, when there is ample evidence to suggest that the killing occurred in relation to the work done by the journalist.
Only a “murder” is included in the impunity index. When it comes to the risk of life for those doing the work of free journalism, impunity is spread across continents, even in countries hailed as big democracies such as India. Press freedom across the planet is taking a deadly toll and has become a grave affair to the point that its very survival is on the firing line.
