Who Is Next? Fears for Media Staff in the Line of Israel's Fire

Israel is running two Gaza campaigns, one for military control of the territory – and another for narrative control over how the rest of the world understands what happens there.

- Emma Graham-Harrison

Israel is running two Gaza campaigns, one for military control of the territory – and another for narrative control over how the rest of the world understands what happens there. In theory, Palestinian journalists and social media influencers documenting starvation, mass killing and other Israeli war crimes in Gaza are protected civilians under international law.

But those paper protections have meant little on the ground in Gaza, by far the most dangerous place in the world to be a reporter, where more than 180 Palestinian journalists have been killed in 22 months of war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Even though it is illegal to target journalists, the CPJ said that over the same period 26 reporters were victims of targeted killings, which it described as murders. The most recent was the Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif.

Press freedom groups and journalists say those killings are part of a campaign of intimidation to shut down vital reporting, which Israel has justified internationally with smears and false claims that the targets were undercover Hamas fighters. With international reporters barred from independent reporting in Gaza – a handful have been allowed in under Israeli military escort, but they are not allowed to move freely or speak to Palestinians – the work done by journalists in Gaza is critical.