The United Nations has sounded a serious alarm about the high number of journalists killed in the Gaza Strip amid the Israeli regime’s genocidal war on the besieged Palestinian territory.
The warning came on Monday, just one day after two Al Jazeera reporters died in an Israeli strike on their car in the southern Gaza Strip.
The journalists, who have been identified as Hamza Wael al-Dahdouh, the son of al-Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh, and Mustafa Thuraya, were killed in the city of Khan Yunis on Sunday.
Hamza and a group of journalists were en route to the Moraj area northeast of the city of Rafah, which was designated a “humanitarian zone” by the Israeli army but has experienced recent bombings.
“Very concerned by high death toll of media workers in Gaza,” the UN rights office said in a post on X social media platform.
It added that killings of all journalists in Gaza “must be thoroughly, independently investigated to ensure strict compliance with international law, and violations prosecuted.”
Very concerned by high death toll of media workers in #Gaza. Killings of all journalists, incl Hamza Al-Dahdouh & Mustafa Abu Thurayya in reported IDF strike on car, must be thoroughly, independently investigated to ensure strict compliance w/ intl law, & violations prosecuted
— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) January 8, 2024
“…what we know is that many of them (journalists) have died and we have repeatedly called for their profession to be respected, so that they are able to do it freely and in safety,” Florencia Soto Nino, a deputy spokeswoman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told reporters on Monday.
A US-based rights advocacy organization said in late December 2023 that the Israeli aggression on Gaza is the most dangerous situation for journalists.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the first 10 weeks of the regime’s genocide were the deadliest recorded ever for journalists, with the most journalists killed in a single year in one location.
“More journalists have been killed in the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year,” the CPJ said in a statement.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has also filed its second complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israeli war crimes against Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip.
The Paris-based press freedom group filed the lawsuit in late December, asking the court in The Hague to investigate the deaths of seven Palestinian journalists who were killed in Gaza from October 22 to December 15.
The group said in a statement that according to the information it collected, “these journalists may have been deliberately targeted as journalists.”
According to the latest figures, nearly 110 journalists have lost their lives in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli regime launched its military aggression against the territory on October 7.
The regime’s genocide in Gaza has so far killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, while leaving nearly 59,000 injured.
