Israel is murdering Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Where is the outrage?

[Donkees]

Chris McGreal
Wed 10 Jan 2024

In 2003, an Israeli soldier shot dead the British documentary cameraman James Miller in Gaza. An inquest in the UK returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Israel declined to prosecute the soldier responsible but it did pay £1.5m in compensation, which Miller’s family said was “probably the closest we’ll get to an admission of guilt on the part of the Israelis”. Miller’s killing looked to be part of a pattern of ill-disciplined Israeli soldiers shooting whoever they felt like – not only journalists but UN officials and aid workers as well as Palestinian children. The army was usually quick to try to cover up the killings but it did not appear they were coordinated.

Gaza looks very different today. As the CPJ and the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders say, the scale and nature of the deaths of journalists and their families suggests there is more going on than a few ill-disciplined soldiers taking pot shots at reporters, even taking into account the deaths of thousands of other Palestinians, including more than 8,000 children.

Certainly the message from some Israeli leaders is that journalists are fair game. Israeli politicians were quick to call for the “elimination” of a number of Palestinian journalists working for foreign news organisations who were falsely accused by a pro-Israel pressure group in the US of being “embedded with Hamas” on 7 October. Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, said they should be hunted down as terrorists, reflecting a widely held suspicion among Israeli officials that Palestinian journalists are an appendage of Hamas.

Miller’s family got a payout because he was British. Dead western journalists create more waves, which is presumably one of the reasons Israel has locked the foreign press out of Gaza during the present war. International news organisations now rely on those same Palestinian reporters targeted by Israel. They provide many of the pictures the rest of the world sees of the horror in Gaza.

It is therefore troubling that while western newspapers and television stations have reported the rising numbers of deaths of journalists in Gaza, many news organisations appear unwilling to directly address the pattern of killing that, as the CPJ’s evidence appears to show, provides strong evidence of a war crime. It would surely be different if American or European reporters were the ones dying.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/10/israel-murdering-palestinian-journalists-in-gaza

[malaise]

1. Only certain journalists count

Rec

[BannonsLiver]

11. I thought they were all McGreedia?

Or is that only certain journalists?

That is all. 😉

[malaise]

12. Bwaaaaah for Mc?

M$Greedia
That is all😀

[Lonestarblue]

2. Netanyahu doesn't want information about the atrocities the IDF is committing in Gaza to be made public.

Killing journalists is just par for the course, along with blowing up children and the doctors and hospitals desperately needed for medical care. I doubt they’re finding many Hamas fighters left in Gaza. Now they’re just murdering any and all Palestinians.

[Beastly Boy]

3. Here's the outrage: Gazan photographers joined in October 7 lynching, raiding of Israelis - report

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-781327

An Instagram Live feed showed multiple Gaza-based photojournalists boasting about their participation in the infiltration of Israel.

Media watchdog HonestReporting, who focus on anti-Israel media coverage, uncovered that two Gaza-based photojournalists who worked for AP and Reuters had bragged about footage they acquired while accompanying Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacre.

Ashraf Amra and fellow photojournalist Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa recorded a video laughing at the lynching of an IDF soldier pulled from a tank on October 7 - footage they captured on the scene.

The two displayed the footage while livestreaming.

These two were not alone, according to HonestReporting's data. What some might have seen as social media speculation was proven true after the NGO uncovered that Amra conducted an Instagram Live stream on October 7, laughing with his friends and colleagues about the events of the day and sharing what they had seen and done after infiltrating Israeli territory.
Gaza photojournalists bragged about involvement in October 7 massacre

The report details the photojournalists' reflections on the day, adding that Abu Mostafa said: “We were there two hours ago, since the beginning.”

A photo published by Reuters by Abu Mostafa of Hamas terrorists holding the dead body of an Israeli soldier was nominated for one of Reuters and the New York Times' "Top Photos of the Year."

[David__77]

4. Is the implication that they should all be killed, or just the ones being referenced?

Or that no one should care about any of them because of the ones being referenced?

[Beastly Boy]

6. The implication is that what it is:

A number of journalists were complicit with terrorists. This disqualifies them from calling themselves journalists, or "protected people", as the Fourth Geneva Convention would put it. They made the choice.

The implication is that there is no "pattern of killing", as the article claims, for the Western media to address. Each is an individual case to be examined as such.

Of course, these implications are far too nuanced for some to consider, and jumping to outrageous conclusions regarding what I am implying is far easier and, probably, far more satisfactory.

[Mosby]

10. Here's a couple of the "reporters".

Link to tweet

[Nixie]

5. Looks like all murderers and rapists have to do is take videos

of their crimes and then they are called photojournalists.

[RocRizzo55]

7. but they might be Hamas

So they have to be murdered. So says Bibi's crew.

[Old Crank]

8. Supression of information.

They want to tell their side only and not let the other side be told.

This Isreali government is fast becoming like the one in Europe they fled from.

[Chakaconcarne]

9. You're seeing the outrage all over in the form of protests?