The Committee to Protect Journalists says the concentration of journalists killed in Gaza is “unprecedented” in the group’s history.
As Israeli forces bombard the Gaza Strip, journalists are being killed at a rate unprecedented in modern history, according to a press freedom group.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Thursday that 68 media workers have been killed during 10 weeks of fighting – including 61 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese.
Among them is Tel Aviv Tribune cameraman Samer Abudaqa, who was killed last week by an Israeli drone strike while reporting from a school in Khan Younis.
“More journalists were killed in the first ten weeks of the war between Israel and Gaza than have ever been killed in a single country in an entire year,” CPJ said in a statement. .
“More than half of the deaths – 37 – occurred in the first month of the war, making it the deadliest month CPJ has documented since it began recording journalist deaths in 1992 », Adds the press release.
The statement comes as Palestinian journalists in Gaza continue to work in brutal conditions, facing constant bombardment, displacement and possible attacks by Israeli forces.
The report draws attention to what CPJ calls “an apparent pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military,” noting that it recorded at least one case in which a journalist was killed while that he wore clearly marked press badges, without any combat having taken place. around.
“The concentration of journalists killed in the war between Israel and Gaza is unprecedented in CPJ’s history and highlights how serious the situation is for the press on the ground,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg.
“Local Palestinian journalists continue to report from Gaza while living in fear for their lives. »
The concentration of journalists killed in Gaza exceeds that of other conflict zones, such as Ukraine, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, the statement said.
CPJ said Iraq was the only country with a death toll close to the current Gaza death toll when in 2006, 56 journalists were killed following the US invasion of the Gulf country three years earlier .
Another Tel Aviv Tribune journalist, Wael Dahdouh, lost his wife, son, daughter and grandson in an Israeli bombing last month and was injured in the attack that killed Abudaqa.
Tel Aviv Tribune said it would take Abudaqa’s assassination to the International Criminal Court (ICC), saying the strike took place against a backdrop of “recurring attacks against the channel’s teams working and operating in the territories occupied Palestinians and cases of incitement against them. .