Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says 140 journalists have been killed in the Israeli military’s raids, bombardments and missile attacks across the Gaza Strip, six months into the regime’s genocidal war on the besieged territory.
The Paris-based international non-governmental organization also called on the international community to exert more pressure on Israel to prevent such a painful tragedy from happening in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Catherine Russell, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), announced that more than 13,000 children have been killed and many others injured as a result of the war in Gaza.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in its annual report released on February 15 that seventy-two of the 99 journalists killed worldwide in 2023 were Palestinians reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza.
The killings of reporters would have dropped globally year-on-year had it not been for the deaths in the ongoing war on Gaza, the organization said.
“In December 2023, CPJ reported that more journalists were killed in the first three months of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year,” the CJP noted.
Jodie Ginsberg, president of the CPJ, said the ongoing Israeli onslaught on Gaza is unprecedented in terms of the threat to journalists.
At least 33,137 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been confirmed killed and 75,815 others injured so far during Israel’s genocidal war, which began following Operation al-Aqsa Storm by Gaza-based resistance movements on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli military campaign has devastated large swathes of Gaza, destroyed hospitals and displaced half of the population of 2.4 million in the world’s “largest open-air prison.”
Israel has also imposed a “complete siege” on the coastal sliver, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
