<\/p>\n
01 February 2024<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military operation in Gaza, in the aftermath of the heinous 7 October attack by Hamas, has become the deadliest, most dangerous conflict for journalists in recent history, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ experts said today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are alarmed at the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers who have been killed, attacked, injured and detained in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in Gaza, in recent months blatantly disregarding international law,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe condemn all killings, threats and attacks on journalists and call on all parties to the conflict to protect them,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
According to Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ reports, since 7 October, over 122 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, and many have been injured. In addition, three journalists in Lebanon were killed as a result of Israeli shelling near the border of Lebanon. Four Israeli journalists were killed by Hamas in the 7 October attacks. Dozens of Palestinian journalists have been detained by Israeli forces in both Gaza and in the West Bank where harassment, intimidation and attacks on journalists have increased since the 7 October attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pay special tribute to the courage and resilience of journalists and media workers in Gaza who continue to put their own lives on the line every day in the course of duty, while also enduring enormous hardship and tragic loss of colleagues, friends and families in one of the bloodiest, most ruthless conflicts of our times,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRarely have journalists paid such a heavy price for just doing their job as those in Gaza now,\u201d the experts said. They highlighted the case of Al-Jazeera journalist, Wael al-Dahdouh, who lost his wife, two children and a grandson as a result of Israeli bombing on 25 October 2023, endured a drone attack himself that killed his cameraman in late December and lost another son, also an Al-Jazeera journalist, along with another journalist, killed by Israeli drone strike targeting their car on 7 January 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have received disturbing reports that, despite being clearly identifiable in jackets and helmets marked \u201cpress\u201d or travelling in well-marked press vehicles, journalists have come under attack, which would seem to indicate that the killings, injury, and detention are a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting,\u201d the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn times of conflict, the right to information is a \u2018survival right\u2019 on which the very lives of civilians depend, and journalists play an indispensable role as a vital source of information, and as human rights defenders and witnesses to atrocities, reporting on violations and abuses of international humanitarian law and human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJournalists are entitled to protection as civilians under international humanitarian law. Targeted attacks and killings of journalists are war crimes,\u201d the experts warned.<\/p>\n
They expressed grave concern that Israel has refused to let media from outside Gaza enter and report unless they are embedded with the Israeli forces. \u201cThe attacks on media in Gaza and restrictions on other journalists from accessing Gaza, combined with severe disruptions of the Internet, are major impediments to the right of information of the people of Gaza as well as the outside world,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urge Israeli authorities to allow journalists to enter Gaza and protect the safety of all journalists in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe further urge the parties to the conflict to allow for and ensure prompt, independent and impartial investigations into every killing of journalists in accordance with international standards, in particular the\u00a0United Nations Minnesota Protocol on the investigation of potentially unlawful death,<\/em>\u201d the experts added.<\/p>\n \u201cIn closing, we urge the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court to give particular attention to the dangerous pattern of attacks and impunity for crimes against journalists, which has intensified since October 7. Targeting and killing of journalists in the Occupied Palestinian Territory must stop,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The experts:\u00a0Ms. Irene Khan,<\/strong>\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of freedom of opinion and expression<\/a><\/em>;\u00a0Ms. Francesca Albanese,<\/strong>\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967<\/a><\/em>;\u00a0Ms.<\/strong>\u00a0Mary Lawlor<\/strong>,\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders<\/a><\/em>;\u00a0Mr. Morris Tidball-Binz,<\/strong>\u00a0Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions;<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Mr. Ben Saul<\/strong>,\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 01 February 2024 Israel\u2019s military operation in Gaza, in the aftermath of the heinous 7 October attack by Hamas, has become the deadliest, most dangerous conflict for journalists in recent history, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ experts said today. \u201cWe are alarmed at the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers who have been killed, attacked, injured […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[1825,5465,6681,5990,4570,6854],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1829,2005,1741,6644,2145],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-304809","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-source-office-of-the-united-nations-high-commissioner-for-human-rights-ohchr","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-extrajudicial-summary-arbitrary-executions","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-promotion-and-protection-of-human-rights-and-fundamental-freedoms-while-countering-terrorism","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-promotion-and-protection-of-the-right-to-freedom-of-opinion-and-expression","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-defenders","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territories-occupied-since-1967","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-casualties","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-media-journalists","document-subject-public-information","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/304809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/304809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304910,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/304809\/revisions\/304910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=304809"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=304809"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=304809"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=304809"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=304809"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=304809"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=304809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}