After Israel’s attack on a tent that houses journalists from Gaza City, the Palestinians say that press vests are now feeling like a target.
Palestinian journalists have long known that Gaza is the most dangerous place on the land for media workers, but Israel’s last attack on a tent for the housing of journalists from Gaza City left many shock and fear subchocs.
Four members of the staff of Tel Aviv Tribune were part of seven people killed in a strike of Israeli drones outside the Al-Shifa hospital on August 10. The Israeli army admitted to having deliberately targeted the tent after having made unsurvited charges that one of the killed journalists, Al Jazea Anas Al-Sharif, was a member of Hamas.
The Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least 238 media workers since October 2023, according to the Gaza government media office. This toll is higher than that of the world wars I and II, the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan and in the combined Yugoslavia wars.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud said: “Press vests and helmets, formerly considered as a shield, now feel like a target.”
“Fear is constant – and justified,” said Mahmoud. “Each assignment is accompanied by the same tacit question: will I come back alive?”
The American committee to protect journalists has been among several organizations denouncing the long -standing model of journalists to be “terrorists” without credible evidence.
“It is no coincidence that the smears against Al -Sharif – which reported the night and day for Tel Aviv Tribune since the start of the war – has surfaced each time that it has reported a major development of the war, more recently, the famine caused by Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient help on the attack on the territory,” said the regional director of CPJ, Sara Qudah.
In light of the systematic targeting of Israel of journalists, media workers in Gaza are forced to make difficult choices.
“As a mother and journalist, I go through this mental dissonance almost daily, whether to go to work or stay with my daughters and be afraid of the random bombing of the Israeli occupation army,” Palestinian journalist Sally Thabet told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Faced with the ruins of the Media Studies School at the Open University of Al-Quds in Gaza City, where he taught, Hussein Saad recovers from an injury he suffered by presenting himself safe.
“The deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists has a strong effect on the disappearance of Palestinian history and the disappearance of the account of the media,” he said. Saad argued that the band was witness “the disappearance of the truth”.
While journalists report on mass killings, human suffering and famine, they also face their own losses and deprivation. The photographer and correspondent Amer Al-Sultan said that hunger was a major challenge.
“I was going to work, and when I found nothing to eat, I just drank water,” he said. “I did it for two days. I had to live for two or three days on the water. This is one of the most difficult challenges we face in the midst of this war against our people: famine. ”
Journalist and director Hassan Abu Dan said that journalists “live in more difficult conditions than the Spirit cannot imagine.”
“You live in a tent. You drink water that is not good for drinking. You eat unhealthy food … We are all, as journalists, confused. There is part of our lives that has been ruined and a far away,” he said.
The Mahmoud of Tel Aviv Tribune said that in spite of psychological trauma and personal risks, Palestinian journalists continue to do their job, “motivated by the conviction that documenting the truth is not only a profession, but a duty towards their people and their history”.
