Israel has been responsible for 43 per cent of the world’s 67 journalists killed this year, with 29 reporters slain during its offensive in Gaza, the Paris-based global media monitor Reporters Without Borders has reported.
This toll makes Israel “the worst enemy of journalists,” the organisation said in its annual report which documented deaths from January 1st this year.
Israel’s army is the main perpetrator, in comparison with organised crime groups which account for 24 per cent and Russia’s army, four per cent, the group stated.
Since Israel mounted a military offensive in Gaza in October 2023 after Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel, an estimated 70,000 Palestinians have been slain, nearly 220 of whom were journalists according to according to Reporters Without Borders.
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The Gaza government media office puts the fatality figure at 257.
As Israel has banned foreign media from entering Gaza – except when embedded with Israeli troops – all journalists slain in enclave have been Palestinians hired by global outlets.
The deadliest incident was during a missile strike on a hospital in southern Gaza in August, which killed five reporters, including two working for Reuters and the Associated Press. Israel argued it mistook the journalists with cameras for Palestinian fighters holding weapons.
The toll in Gaza, the globe’s most dangerous area for reporters, was far higher than in other conflicted areas.
By comparison, it has been the deadliest in Mexico in three years, with nine killed, while four were killed in Sudan’s civil conflict and three in Ukraine during the war waged by Russia.
At least 53 of the total were the victims of “criminal practices of military groups and organised crime,” Reporters Without Borders stated.
Israel came second after Russia with 26 in journalist detentions, the report said, citing the imprisonment this year of 20 Palestinian journalists. Israel had detained 16 in Gaza and the occupied West Bank during the past two years.
Syria is “the country with the highest number of missing news professionals – over a quarter of the world total”, Reporters Without Borders said.
At least 37 journalists have not been unaccounted for out of 135 listed as dead or missing after being imprisoned in Syria during the rule of former president Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted a year ago.
Two foreign journalists were killed this year. French photojournalist Antoni Lallican was slain by a Russian drone strike in Ukraine and Salvadorean journalist Javier Hércules, was killed in Honduras, where he had been based for ten years.
Journalists also face repression and arrest in many countries. As of December 1st last, more than 500 journalists were detained in 47 countries across the world, with 121 held in China, 48 in Russia, and 47 in Myanmar, according to Reporters Without Borders.
