France’s journalists rally against killing of Palestinian reporters
Around 200 journalists from France rallied in Paris and Marseille on April 16th in protest against Israel’s killing of Palestinian reporters and to show solidarity with their colleagues who work in Gaza, according to the Middle East Eye.
Clad in press vests with symbolic red marks, the French journalists laid down on the steps of the Opera Bastille in Paris, as the names of colleagues who died since the beginning of the war in October 2023 were read out.
Those who took part in the rally carried placards which showed photos of the deceased reporters with the slogan “Gaza: faces, not just numbers.”
In Marseille, roughly 160 people gathered to remember the journalists killed, in which the names of the victims were read out and there was a minute silence.
Meanwhile, the amount of journalists killed in the conflict in Gaza reached 209, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza, after the death of Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Bardawil, Middle East Eye reported on April 1st.
Al-Bardawil, his wife and three children died, when an Israeli airstrike struck their home, located in the west of Khan Yunis, in Gaza’s south.
According to Arab News on April 1st Al-Bardawil was the third Palestinian journalist killed since Israel resumed attacks on Gaza in March. Middle East Eye reported on March 24th that attacks in northern Gaza killed an Al Jazeera correspondent and a Palestine Today correspondent. The Government Media Office in Gaza declared these attacks “systematic.”
Jodie Ginsberg, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ chief executive, categorizes the intentional killing of journalists as a “war crime.” The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression has also validated this claim.
Arab News, Middle East Eye
