Multiple media outlets are coordinating a large-scale protest on Monday to demand Israel stop the killing of journalists in Gaza and call for international press to be allowed into the enclave to report freely.
Nearly 200 outlets from 50 countries will take part in the demonstration, according to organizers, with print newspapers running blacked-out front pages, broadcasters and radio stations interrupting their programming and online outlets disrupting their home pages.
The protest, coordinated by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Avaaz and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), aims to draw attention to the alarming number of journalists killed during Israel’s war in Gaza.
At least 210 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, IFJ said, making the conflict the deadliest for reporters in modern times. Meanwhile, Israel has barred international media from reporting freely in Gaza, leaving Palestinian journalists to report under fire.
“At the rate at which journalists are being killed in Gaza by the IDF, soon there will be no one left to keep the world informed. This is not only a war on Gaza, it is a war on journalism itself,” said Thibat Bruttin, director general of RSF.
“Journalists are being killed, they are being targeted, they are being defamed. Without them, who will speak of famine, who will expose war crimes, who will denounce genocides?”
The demonstration comes after the recent killings of several prominent Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
In early August, Israel killed five staff members from the news network Al Jazeera in a strike on Gaza City, days after the security cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved a plan to take over the city.
Among those killed was Anas Al-Sharif, one of the most well-known Palestinian journalists in Gaza. He became a household name for many in the Arab world due to his daily coverage of the conflict and its humanitarian toll.
Last week, Israel killed another five journalists in back-to-back strikes on the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, in a tactic known as a “double tap.”
After the first strike on the hospital, people rushed to treat the wounded while journalists arrived to report. Then, Israel struck again.
Video obtained exclusively by CNN showed the second “tap” was in fact two near-simultaneous strikes. These second and third strikes appear to have caused most of the deaths.
Netanyahu conceded the incident was a “tragic mishap.”
