RSF: Palestine Is Most Dangerous Country for Journalists
Gaza (Quds News Network)- Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Palestine is the most “dangerous country for journalists,” with more than 145 journalists killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the start of the genocide war in October 2023.
An annual report published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Thursday found the Israeli army killed 18 journalists – two in Lebanon and 16 in Gaza – as they were working this year.
The toll, equivalent to around a third of the total worldwide of 54, was described by RSF as “an unprecedented massacre”.
“Palestine is the most dangerous country for journalists, recording a higher death toll than any other country over the past five years,” the organisation said in its report, which covers data up to December 1.
In total, “more than 145” journalists have been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since the start of the war there in October 2023, with 35 of them working at the time of their deaths, the report found.
It described the number of killings as “an unprecedented bloodbath”.
RSF has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “war crimes committed against journalists by the Israeli army”.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has been considered the deadliest for journalists and media workers in the world in 30 years.
Critics accuse Israel – which banned foreign reporters from entering Gaza – of targeting journalists in the Palestinian territory to obscure the truth about its war crimes there.
“Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international law. This attack must be independently investigated and the perpetrators must be held to account,” Programme Director at Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Carlos Martinez de la, said.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) also released a report on Tuesday, describing 2024 as a “particularly bloody year.”
According to the IFJ’s annual report, as of December 10, 2024, 104 journalists have been killed worldwide since January 1, with more than half of them in Gaza.
Seventy-five percent of all reporters killed in the world in 2023 were killed between October 7 and the end of last year.
IFJ Secretary General Anthony Bellanger described 2024 as “one of the worst years” for media professionals. He condemned the “massacre taking place in Palestine before the eyes of the entire world.”
Since the start of the war, the number of Palestinian journalists killed has risen to at least 138, making Palestine one of the most dangerous in the history of modern journalism, behind Iraq, the Philippines and Mexico.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, 193 journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks since the start of the assault.
The figures vary because they use different methodologies to calculate the tolls. RSF only records journalist deaths in its report if they have been “proven to be directly related to their professional activity”.
