SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Israel’s Slaughter of Journalists Can’t Go Unpunished

Prof Neve Gordon and Muna Haddad: Israel’s Slaughter of Journalists Can’t Go Unpunished ‘Israel’s killing of at least 225 Palestinian journalists since 7 October 2023 briefly attracted international attention after it was calculated that more journalists have died in Gaza than in the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan combined. As part of its effort to eliminate witnesses and control the narrative, Israel has, as one commentator wrote, transformed Gaza into journalism’s graveyard. It has used drones to hunt down media workers from afar, such as when it targeted Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif alongside Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed al-Khalidi, in a tent housing journalists near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Israeli forces have also executed journalists at close range, such as when a sniper killed Saed Abu Nabhan in central Gaza’s Nuseirat area. Many other journalists have been injured, detained or disappeared, while Israeli forces have systematically damaged or destroyed more than 100 governmental and non-governmental media institutions and offices, including television, satellite and radio stations; broadcasting towers; media service offices; and newspaper headquarters. … Western media bias The limited legal protections afforded to journalists leave them exposed to Israel’s systematic targeting. Israel has been further emboldened by western media and the role it has played in undermining perceptions of Palestinian journalists’ professionalism and credibility. Israel has a long history of defaming Palestinian journalists, even using the government’s advertising agency to produce YouTube ads claiming that reporters from Gaza are integral to “Hamas propaganda”, and are thus legitimate targets. …. Rhetoric of incitement The accusation that Palestinian journalists are ideologically motivated and cannot be objective comes from media outlets that circulated insidious reports about beheaded babies and infants cooked in ovens. It comes from outlets that repeated lies about the existence of a command centre under al-Shifa Hospital, alongside the false accusation that Palestinian journalists directed Hamas rocket units from the rooftops of hospitals. Indeed, dehumanising Palestinians helps to normalise not only genocide, but also the incitement to commit genocide that Israeli journalists have spewed from day one. Legal precedents Such statements could amount to direct and public incitement to commit genocide, an act punishable under Article 3 of the 1951 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In a similar vein, Article 25 of the 1998 Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court provides that a person who “directly and publicly incites others to commit genocide” bears individual criminal responsibility. There are precedents for holding Israeli journalists and other media outlets accountable for incitement. … Despite Israel’s attempt to cast Palestinian journalists as inciters to violence, the great and tragic irony, as the Rwanda case highlights, is that a not-insignificant number of Israeli journalists are guilty of precisely this crime. It is therefore time for each and every signatory to the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention to ensure that all journalists and media managers who have used the rhetoric of incitement are held accountable – by arresting them when they travel abroad and prosecuting them in national courts, which have universal jurisdiction. What we have seen instead are numerous media outlets undermining the credibility of those who bear witness to Israel’s crimes – while, at times, facilitating the transformation of journalism into a vehicle that aids and abets genocide and crimes against humanity.’

From counterpunch.org

11:10 PM · Dec 25, 2025