The Israel Defense Forces wrote to Reuters and AFP this week after they had sought assurances that their journalists in Gaza would not be targeted by Israeli strikes.
“The IDF is targeting all Hamas military activity throughout Gaza,” the IDF letter said, adding that Hamas deliberately put military operations “in the vicinity of journalists and civilians”.
The IDF also noted that its high-intensity strikes on Hamas targets could cause damage to surrounding buildings and that Hamas rockets could also misfire and kill people inside Gaza.
Well here’s multiple pieces of reporting then as well as a Wikipedia section on this very topic.
This NPR piece sums up the significance of the journalist death toll quite soundly, as well as speaking about alleged crackdowns on journalists. I found this part striking:
Here’s a New York Times article from a week ago titled “Some Israeli Journalists Express Fear About Conveying Dissenting Views”
The first paragraph or so:
Here’s a 2021 article titled “Why Israel Blows Up Media Offices and Targets Journalists” by FreePress.org
Here is the CPJ(Committee to Protect Journalists) report titled “Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Hamas war”
and here is the wiki page titled “Violence against journalists in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war”
Seems like a lot of deaths. Almost so much so that there’s a questionable amount where a news org like Reuters would ask for some assurances that they wouldn’t be targeted. This article is literally how a news org would say that, but not explicitly, so that they wouldn’t automatically trigger reprisals.
None of this proves your claim, that the IDF intentionally targets journalists.
NPR article: Journalist fatalities are high, interesting but doesn’t prove that they are targeting journalists. If numbers are higher than usual it seems likely that it’s because they are bombing Gaza at a rate much higher than during the second intifada. Bombs are often indiscriminate even when used carefully. The IDF denies targeting them in that same article.
New York Times article: “Some Israeli Journalists Express Fear About Conveying Dissenting Views” - Some members of the Israeli public and right-wingers are angry about journalists who take the side of their attacker. Not sure why you linked this.
FreePress article (holy moly, another terrible source) This op-ed is full of opinions, and the only factual thing it cites is that IDF blew up the building that had AP’s press bureau in it. Except, they first notified everyone to leave. which is the opposite of what one would do if they intended to kill journalists.
CPJ article: Interesting, examples of media being forcibly searched for weapons and escorted out of the area by IDF, examples of journalists being attacked by Israeli right-wingers (not the IDF,) mentions journalists who were arrested but with little context on why besides their relatives believing it was reprisal for social media posts, not great behavior towards journalists, but still not evidence the IDF intentionally targets them.
Wikipedia: Examples of violence against journalists in Hamas war - “Violence against journalists by Israeli forces” all journalists were killed by airstrikes, presumably collateral damage. “Claims of IDF targeting of journalists” the reporters called out appear to have been caught in the crossfire. I don’t see any evidence presented that IDF intentionally targeted them, but there are certainly some organizations jumping to that conclusion.
While some of these incidents are troubling and showcase at least a lack of deference to journalists, and at most a hostility to them, correlation is not causation. It could just be this is an active war zone where people are killing each other, and they have other priorities besides guaranteeing the safety of journalists there to be critical of them at present.
You know how many journalists died covering the Ukraine/Russia conflict since 2014? 17. You know how many this year? 2.
I get that no bar of proof will be high enough for you outside of Israel literally admitting to it or someone escaping with inside proof.
I believe this number is quite telling though.
Since CPJ started tracking the killing of journalists in 1992 there have been 2225 deaths. This conflict accounts for 1/100 of that total in less than 3 weeks.
You might be right, but that’s a bold and very serious claim. I hope others insist on compelling evidence before accepting such suspicions as truth. If these air strikes are intentionally targeting civilian journalists I’d expect that would leave quite a paper trail and involved a lot of people. It would be just a matter of time before some solid evidence of it emerged. Until then, I’m more inclined to believe this is the fog of war in a very bloody escalating conflict than an elaborate conspiracy and cover-up.
So again it’s only a matter of time before they report themselves for war crimes or there’s a whistle blower.
They’d dropped 6,000 bombs 2 weeks ago and reports say that bombardments have only intensified since then. Hell, at this very moment people are saying it’s on a whole different level. I’m sure there’s a paper trail and targeting data on all of that which will be meticulously preserved, thoroughly analyzed and made public. Not like it’s just indiscriminate bombings…
Well whatever evidence it needs to be something more compelling than the number went up. More journalists died than is usual in an escalating war zone does not prove intent. “The IDF targets journalists,” is a claim about intent.
It’s very discriminate, spelled out in Dahiya Doctrine:
I expect Israel will probably level the Northern part of Gaza and move the wall, in hopes that distance will provide safety and to encourage Gazans to leave through Egypt once the gates reopen.
I’m not sure how “discriminate” it can be when you’re approaching the likely number of bombs dropped being on par with the total number of Hamas members (20-25 thousand). History will not look back on this kindly, no matter what debate will be left on what Israels “intent” was.
Even the US is pulling back support right now due to the humanitarian crisis that’s unfolding.
I will leave this here too: https://www.refworld.org/docid/498857ac31.html and https://rsf.org/en/recherche?text=Gaza
If this doesn’t convince you that there is an intentional targeting of journalists working from Gaza I don’t know what would.
And don’t forget the killing of Shireen Abu Aqla, who then initially declined and then admitted. The same killing which was supposed to be independently investigated but this independent investigation never happened.
And don’t forget that right now there is a complete internet blackout in Gaza. So the world would only hear the Israeli side of the narrative.
Same incident was in the above article; a building was destroyed, Israel warned everyone there before they struck it and claimed Hamas was using the building. If killing journalists was their goal this doesn’t seem like the way to behave, though it would certainly disrupt reporting.
A search query for the term “gaza?” You expect me to read every article that matches that term on this site?
I clicked through a few, reporters killed in airstrikes in Gaza, some more buildings that had media organizations in them were hit among many others, some reporters harassed by IDF soldiers years ago, some journalists arrested. I don’t see any of them offering evidence that IDF intentionally targets journalists (or their families which has been suggested elsewhere) with airstrikes, or that anyone intentionally shot journalists.
Hard to forget something I’ve never heard of before.
And there it is, compelling evidence of a journalist being targeted by IDF! Thank you. I wish y’all had opened with that it would have saved me reading a lot of tangentially related articles.
This seems like tacit if not explicit approval of killing a journalist by IDF, I stand corrected. They publicly apologized but did not punish the one who did it.