Another Palestinian journalist has been killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip, bringing to 133 the number of journalists killed since the beginning of Israel’s latest war in early October.
According to the Gaza government media office, Mohammed Salameh, a presenter for al-Aqsa TV run by Hamas resistance movement, was killed in Israel’s bombardment on his home in the central Gaza Strip city of Deir al-Balah on Tuesday.
Over a week ago, Israeli warplanes targeted the home of Palestinian journalist Muhammad Tishreen Yaghi in the town of al-Zawayda, killing him along with his wife and his daughter.
Journalist Musaab Abu Zayed, a presenter for the Holy Quran Radio in the Gaza Strip, was also killed in an airstrike on his home in Nuseirat camp, located five kilometers (3.1 miles) northeast of Deir al-Balah.
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 30,631 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been confirmed killed and 72,043 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.
