A prominent journalists’ rights group is calling for international investigations into Israel’s pattern of killing journalists amid its assault of Lebanon, saying that the longtime impunity for Israel’s occupation and massacres will only allow it to kill more of the people exposing the military’s violence in the Middle East to the world.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) raised alarm over Israel’s violence against journalists on Tuesday, in a statement released after an Israeli strike killed three journalists in southern Lebanon last week. Al-Mayadeen’s Ghassan Najjar and Mohammed Reda and Al-Manar TV’s Wissam Kassem were killed in the strike.
On Friday, Israeli forces bombed a compound housing 18 journalists at around 4 am local time. The journalists had communicated their position to warring parties, meaning that the strike was likely intentional. Israeli forces claimed to have struck “terrorists” in the compound, without evidence.
“Journalists are civilians, and the international community has an obligation to protect them by making it clear to Israel that their long-standing record of aggression and impunity in journalist killings will not be tolerated,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said in a statement.
“International bodies must be given access to conduct independent investigations into these killings. Deadly attacks on journalists, who are protected under international humanitarian law, and obstructions to reporting must immediately stop,” Martinez de la Serna added.
Israeli forces have waged a fierce campaign against journalists and journalism at large amid Israel’s genocide of Gaza and invasion of Lebanon. Preceding this past year of attacks was decades of attacks against journalists who have reported on Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and aggression against other countries.
According to CPJ, at least 134 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Israel and Lebanon amid Israel’s genocide: 126 Palestinians, two Israelis and six Lebanese people. The group says it’s investigating 130 other cases of media workers being killed, wounded and arrested; Gaza officials have said that Israel has killed at least 182 journalists in Gaza over the past year.
CPJ has documented numerous incidents of Israeli attacks against journalists in Lebanon for international powers to look into, including Israeli strikes on multiple news outlets’ offices; forced displacement of journalists as part of Israel’s vast evacuation orders; and attacks on and detention of journalists.
Israel’s violence against journalists has had a record death toll, according to CPJ, with more journalists killed in the past year of Israel’s genocide than in every year since CPJ began recording such data in 1992. The next deadliest year for journalists was 2006, in which 56 journalists were killed during the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq.
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