Among the victims of wars there have always been journalists, information professionals who go to the most dangerous places in the world and try to tell everyone what is happening. And many never return home, only to become victims of the war they were meant to witness. And now the conflict in the Gaza Strip has brought the death toll among journalists to unprecedented levels; While dozens of them were killed in Israeli bombings, many others saw loved ones, parents, wives, husbands, relatives or in-laws. Our friends are being killed in Israeli attacks. Perhaps the most horrifying case was that Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Dahdouh, who was documenting the situation in Deir al-Balah, discovered that among the bombing victims at the city hospital was his entire family: his wife, son, daughter and grandson.
“75 journalists were killed, more than 140 were injured. 65 newspaper offices were completely destroyed, 22 local radio stations were forced to stop broadcasting or were bombed. When reporters are not directly victims, most of the time their loved ones, at least 300 relatives, died. Many journalists died under the bombs. ” Among these terrible figures is the President of the Union of Palestinian Journalists, Nasser Abu Baker, who came to Brussels to meet with some members of the European Parliament.
“They are killing journalists to kill the truth, they are targeting them, they are punishing them for what they have done. Israel does not want the world to know and see what is happening, it does not want citizens to start putting pressure on their government. International, the world’s largest journalist organization, representing 600 thousand media professionals affiliated with 187 unions and associations Abu Baker, who is also the vice president of the Federation of Journalists (IFJ), said, “Let them stop the massacre.” More than 140 countries.
Many young people, who document what is happening in Gaza with images of destruction and death brought by the war, use their mobile phones to share images of life in Gaza on social media every day. Plestia Alaqad became famous among them and now has more than four million followers on Instagram alone. “The work that these young influencers do is very important, very important, because they document the extent of the destruction, the difficulty of the situation. They are not professionals, but they provide information, so we are in contact with them and also make offers. We help them as much as we can,” says the union president.
Journalists, like citizens, are subject to the Israeli army’s evacuation orders, but many do not respect these orders to continue documenting what is happening. “After evacuating the northern part of the Strip, they are now forcing everyone, including journalists, to go towards the Rafah crossing in Egypt. They do not allow Palestinian reporters to stay where Israeli troops are coming from. What journalists have managed to report is “only a small percentage of what is actually going on right now.” , says Abu Baker. The life of journalists has never been easy in the Palestinian territories, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank. Abu Baker says, “55 journalists have been killed since 2000; “Among them are international correspondents such as the British James Miller or the Italian Raffaele Ciriello,” he recalls.
Miller, a 5-time Emmy award-winning documentary producer, was killed by an Israeli soldier in 2003 as he left the house where he shot some scenes with white flags in Gaza. No one was ever found guilty of his murder. Ciriello, 42, was killed in Ramallah on the West Bank in 2002, when he was riddled with five bullets fired from an Israeli tank while he was documenting the second Intifada. He was the first foreign journalist killed in Palestinian territory.
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Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
