The Israel-Gaza war has killed at least 21 journalists since Hamas' unprecedented Oct. 7 attack and Israel's ensuing declaration of war, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported on Oct. 19.
CPJ's investigation confirmed that 21 journalists have been killed in the fighting, while eight have been reported missing and another three missing or detained.
Of those confirmed victims, 17 are Palestinian, three Israeli, and one Lebanese.
“[J]ournalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s regional program coordinator.
“Journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this heartbreaking conflict. All parties must take steps to ensure their safety.”
Anastasiia Lapatina
The CPJ report noted that it was not clear whether all the confirmed victims were actively engaged in reporting at the time of their deaths. Additional unconfirmed accounts of journalists being killed, detained, or wounded are currently under investigation.
"Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict in the face of a ground assault by Israeli troops, devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, and extensive power outages," the CPJ report said.
One of the 21 victims, Issam Abdallah, a Lebanese videographer working for Reuters, was killed in an Israeli airstrike while reporting on the war from southern Lebanon.
Previously, Abdallah covered Russia's war against Ukraine, for which he and his team won the 2022 Reuters Video Journalist of the year award.
"I have learned through all the years of covering conflicts and wars with Reuters from around the region that the picture is not only front lines and smoke, but the untold human stories which touch us all inside," Abdallah wrote to his editors about his work in Ukraine.
The Kyiv Independent
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