About 60 leaders of international and regional news organizations signed a letter on Thursday and Friday expressing support for journalists covering the war in Gaza, protecting their safety and doing their work at great personal risk. I asked for freedom.
The letter, coordinated by the Committee to Protect Journalists with support from the World News Publishers Association, calls on Israeli authorities to protect journalists as non-combatants in accordance with the requirements of international law, and those responsible for violating that protection must be held accountable. He added that it should be done. responsible.
“These journalists, on whom the international press and the international community rely for information about the situation in the Gaza Strip, continue to report despite grave personal risk,” the letter said. This article is about Palestinian media personnel who are “Despite the loss of family, friends, and colleagues, the destruction of homes and offices, constant evacuations, communications blackouts, and food and fuel shortages, they continue.”
Signatories include The Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, and leaders of regional news organizations in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.
Palestinian journalists face significant danger and human loss in their efforts to report on the war. Some people were injured during the interviews. Some have lost family members or colleagues. Some people have quit amidst difficulties. At least 94 journalists have died in the war since October 7, the group said, making it the deadliest period for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data in 1992. There is. Israeli and Egyptian authorities have barred international media from entering Gaza, and reporters from other major media outlets have also been evacuated, making it impossible to grasp the true scale of the war.
According to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, most media workers killed in the war were Palestinians, many of whom were killed along with their families in airstrikes. Some human rights groups have claimed that Israel targets journalists, but Israel has repeatedly denied the accusations.
The letter sparked a backlash from some journalists, who accused them or their colleagues of media outlets of expressing support for Palestinian journalists and civilians in a letter highly critical of Israeli war tactics in Gaza. He said he was punished.
When journalists resign or are fired for protesting the Israel-Hamas war, news organizations argue that expressing opinions that take sides violates newsroom policy.