The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has ramped up attacks against journalists across Gaza over the past week. One of the journalists was Al-Aqsa Television photojournalist Mohammed Tanani, who was shot dead by Israeli snipers while reporting during an Israeli ground invasion in Jabalia Refugee Camp in the northern Gaza strip on Wednesday. Al-Aqsa Television reporter Tamer Lubbad was also injured in the same incident, and Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi sustained a critical injury as he was shot in the neck by the snipers.
On Monday, October 7, Al Jazeera cameraman Ali Al-Attar was also injured with shrapnel that hit his head while covering the situation of displaced people in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza strip. Al Jazeera issued a statement condemning the attack as ”another grave violation against journalists in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been increasingly hostile toward media workers”.
The Gaza media office already stated on Monday that the death toll of journalists killed in Gaza since the Israeli aggression started on October 7, 2023, reached 176, the number is now 177 with the killing of Mohammed Tanani.
The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said in a statement published on the committee’s website on Thursday, October 10: “Since the war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest price – their lives – for their reporting. Without protection, equipment, international presence, communications, or food and water, they are still doing their crucial jobs to tell the world the truth”. “Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth. Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze,” the CPJ program director added.
In addition to targeting Palestinian journalists, Israel has also tried to silence the voice of foreign journalists to prevent them from reporting the truth. The IOF arrested and physically abused Jeremy Loffredo, who is a US investigative reporter working with the US-based media outlet The Grayzone, on Tuesday, October 8, while reporting in Israel. According to information shared by his colleagues, Loffredo was beaten and detained with four other journalists. He was reportedly detained and being processed on charges of “aiding the enemy” following his report on the extensive damage that Iranian missiles caused to Israeli military bases last week.
