Palestinian journalist killed, raises media worker death toll
A Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli strike on June 20th, which brought the number of media workers killed in Israel’s war on Gaza to 152, The New Arab and agencies reported.
Palestinian broadcaster Al-Aqsa TV identified the deceased as Salim al Sharafa, who worked as a journalist and presenter for the channel. The network, however, did not provide details as to specifically how or where the journalist was killed.
“We pray to Allah for mercy, acceptance, and paradise for our martyred colleagues,” the network wrote in its statement, “and for patience and solace for their families and the Palestinian media community.”
Earlier that week on June 17th, Gaza’s government media office announced the killing of another Palestinian journalist, Mahmoud Qasem. They warned that Israel’s war on Gaza has induced multiple cases of attacks, arrests, threats, and censorship against Palestinian media workers.
READ: Pulitzer Prizes honour journalists’ coverage of Israel-Gaza war
On May 6th, another Palestinian journalist had been killed in a similar fashion, when an airstrike targeted the house of Mustafa Ayad in Zeitoun. At that point, the death toll was 142.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also harboured a vendetta against media outlet Al-Jazeera, declaring on April 1st that he would take “immediate action” in shutting down the network’s Israeli offices.
“Much of what we know about what has happened in Gaza is because of reporters who are there doing their jobs,” said US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recently filed its third complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) last month to initiate a probe on alleged Israeli war crimes against journalists. Similarly, in December, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) referred to the conflict as the deadliest yet for media workers — with more journalists killed in a singular location in one year.
“The Israeli army has killed more journalists in 10 weeks than any other army or entity has in any single year,” said the CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator Sherif Mansour, “and with every journalist killed, the war becomes harder to document and to understand.”
The New Arab and agencies
