Mohamed Elmaki Ahmed:
The high number of deaths among journalists in the Israel-Palestinian war in Gaza has made 2024 a year of disaster, for all media workers in the world.
According to (Reporters Without Borders), at least 103 journalists and media workers have been killed since 7 October 2023, after the Hamas military operation inside Israel, and the Israeli assault in Gaza.
Meanwhile, many organizations that defend journalistic rights condemned killing journalist while doing their professional roles.
The Committee to Protect Journalists( CPJ) said on 3 May 2024 that its preliminary investigations showed at least 97 journalists and media workers were killed among more than 35,000 killed since the war began on October 7, with more than 34,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 death in Israel.
Moreover, there is strong evidence showing that Israel is deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza and their families.
In October 2023 Al Jazeera news channel announced that its correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh’s wife and teenage son, young daughter, and grandson were killed at a refugee camp in Gaza by an Israeli bombing raid.
The features of this tragedy emerged when Al-Jazeera revealed that the son Mahmoud, 15 years old was in his final year at high school, while his daughter Sham was seven years old, and Adam the grandson was 18 – months – old.
In that dangerous atmosphere, many countries and organizations have condemned targeting and killing Palestinians and journalists and urged Israel to respect journalists’ roles during wars, and conflicts and protect them.
These appeals are only political statements, without any practical results, because there are no international tools to transform them into binding decisions,
The absence of international penalties encourages violators of journalists’ rights in many countries, especially in Israel and other Middle East countries, to commit more crimes against journalists.
Journalists’ unions must put additional pressure, especially, on the Western countries’ governments, and the international community, to make journalists’ protection a reality, not a blurred slogan.
In order to make an effective international decision the journalist’s unions need to move from issuing angry statements to thinking about a day strike for all journalists worldwide.
If this happens, as a first step, in a series of strikes, to stop all local and international media from working, the voice of journalists will be heard, be influential, and could be able to confront violations and crimes against journalists.
Killing journalists should cause global, and moving outrage.
This can be increased by a full-scale strike, for the world’s journalists, and this might set the stage for a comprehensive solution that can protect journalists, not only in the time of war but from all oppressive and dictatorial systems in the world.
Protecting journalists from killing and all aspects of suffering must be a practical priority for the UN and all humanitarian organizations, and every person who respects human rights, to achieve the flow of information, and save the people’s rights to receive correct information and facts, not propaganda, or fake news.
