Silence Abounds While Israel Slaughter Journalists in Gaza

The genocidal slaughter of noncombatants in Gaza, by the fascist rulers of Israel, is having deadly onslaughts on journalists and media workers who are protected under international conventions, and with 274 killed, it is the single deadliest conflict for journalists in all known conflicts in the history of the world, according to the Cost of War Project.

The United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1738, and the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), were enacted to safeguard journalists by protecting their right to work, ensuring source confidentiality, preventing harassment and violence, and providing legal recourse when these rights are violated. 

Over the years, Israel has been deemed by several human rights and media groups of thoughtless acts, including killing and bombing of media entities in Gaza and other sections of Palestine, but since its revenge clearing of the population of Gaza, to avenge the October 7, 2023 miscalculated actions of Hamas, the country’s regime is now on par with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi murderers, with media workers being starved and killed for informing the world of atrocities in Gaza and Occupied Territories.

The killing of journalist by the Israeli army, since October 7, 2023, has led to the deaths of more journalists than the combined total killed during the U.S. Civil War, World War One, and World Two, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, conflicts in Cambodia and Laos other wars across Europe in the1990s and early 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, according to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

While in this region, the Caribbean Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM), and the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ), and other groups, such as those representing workers and religions, have been very silent on the genocidal acts in Palestine, and killing of journalists in Gaza, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), has stood very tall in helping the global community to frown and take actions against the atrocities.

In a recent media release, the IFJ stated that for more than a year the war in Gaza, in Palestine, Israel is continuing with its bombardments, and the humanitarian situation is extremely dire, with the Israeli Government “deliberately using starvation” as a weapon against the people of Gaza. “Palestinian journalists and media workers are the only ones bearing witness to the atrocities amid Israel’s ban on foreign media. 

“IFJ has had evidence that the Israeli army has deliberately targeted journalists, and some of these cases are currently the subject of a complaint file before the International Criminal Court (ICC),” the group said, while noting that with over 200 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, it is “a mortality rate of over ten per cent, dramatically higher than any other occupational group.”

Continuing, the IFJ highlighted that that all hostages must be released, and for the opening of Gaza to international reporters, and “Israel to respect international law that requires combatants to safeguard journalists.” The IFJ is the world’s largest organisation of journalists, representing 600,000 media professionals from 187 trade unions and associations in more than 140 countries.

In its condemnation of the atrocities in Gaza, the United States (US) based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), commented that “Israel’s war on Gaza is more deadly to journalists than any previous war, and reported that Israel is “engaging in the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists,” of which it has documented, and while Palestinian journalists are being threatened, directly targeted and murdered by Israeli forces.

They are also “arbitrarily detained and tortured in retaliation for their work. Media infrastructure in Gaza is systematically destroyed, and censorship has been tightened throughout the West Bank and Israel. CPJ calls on the international community to action to end these atrocities; grant international media independent access to Gaza to be able to investigate and report what is happening without fear of censorship or assassination, and hold Israel to account,” the CPJ said in a recent media release.

In an unusual response to atrocities by Israel, 27 countries, including the United Kingdom (UK), France, Germany, Australia, and Japan have also signed document organised by the 51-member country, Media Freedom Coalition, calling for Israel to allow immediate independent foreign media access to Gaza, in light of “the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe”, adding that they “oppose all attempts to restrict press freedom and block entry to journalists,” while also condemning  attacks on journalists, saying those working in Gaza must be protected.

The lives of journalists in Gaza, are not only taken by Israeli deadly weapons supplied by the Americans, but also actions by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), that have caused starvation. In recent weeks, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Reuters,  Associated Press (AP), and the Parris based Agence France-Presse (AFP ), issued a joint statement expressing “desperate concern” for journalists in the territory, who they say are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families.

After the killing   by the IDF, of three media workers from the Middle East Eye, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and Reuters, when Israel attacked a hospital in Gaza on Monday, August 25, 2025, UN Spokesperson, Thameen Al-Kheetan said condemnation of the strikes by Israeli forces on the Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis, “now needs to be channeled into a demand for accountability and justice for all those killed.

“We know that one of the five journalists appears to have been killed in the first air strike while three others including the women journalist appear to have been killed in the second air strike. This is a shock, and this is unacceptable,” said Mr. Al-Kheetan.

Adding further, the UN official said is office is continuing to corroborate the factual details of Monday’s strikes, adding that targeting journalists as well as hospitals is forbidden under international law.

“These journalists are the eyes and the ears of the whole world, and they must be protected. This raises many, many questions about the targeting of journalists and all of these incidents must absolutely be investigated and those responsible must be held accountable,” he said.

In September, for the first time, the IDF acknowledged killing of journalists, while accusing the media workers of links to Hamas, but Reporters Without Borders condemned the “acknowledged murder by the Israeli army” and called on the international community to intervene, and spokesperson for the British Prime Minister, said “we are gravely concerned by the repeated targeting of journalists in Gaza.

 “Reporters covering conflicts are afforded protection under international humanitarian law and journalists must be able to report independently without fear, and Israel must ensure journalists can carry out their work safely,” the PM’s spokesperson said.

Human rights organisations and critics of Israel over the treatment of Palestinians, have labeled the situation akin to what black South Africans faced during the Apartheid regime. Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and former UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson, have said the “ever growing evidence” they found that “the situation meets the international legal definition of apartheid.” 

In December 2023, South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel, claiming violations of the Genocide Convention in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Several countries have since joined the case. While explaining why her country has joined the cause of Palestinians, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr. Grace Naledi Mandisa Pandor told a recent forum at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus, that they “benefited from international solidarity in their struggle for freedom.

“People who didn’t know us, who had never been to South Africa, when we asked them to raise their voices against what we were experiencing, they did. When we asked them to help us in any way that they can, they did. We will continue to provide support to the Palestinian people. We will continue to campaign where we are located. We will continue to provide them with aid when we can. We think that is the role that we should play, because we can’t go there and fight as guerrillas. Sometimes I wish I was there. But what we must do is always indicate that we are available in solidarity,” the Minister said.

As it continues its brutality against the Palestinians, and brave journalists who seek to showcase what  Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley described as “a televised genocide” and  “travesty” that offends every human sensibility, Israel has largely silenced the global community, and like other state atrocities that have come to aunt the bodies like the UN, and the European Union (EU), this one will stain the conscience of the free world, and will be emulated by regimes similar to the fascist Zionists in Israel.

Genocide was first recognised as a crime under international law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly. The Convention defines genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” These five acts include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.

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