MEDIA STATEMENT
We as journalists and media workers in South Africa stand steadfast against Israel’s brutal murders of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza. With immense grief, we learned that Israel killed six media workers in a targeted attack on the tent in which they sheltered in the Al Shifa hospital precinct in Gaza City on Sunday, 10 August.
This heinous attack is the latest in Israel’s strategy to silence journalists reporting on the genocide in Palestine – a deliberate campaign to black out its atrocities.
The slain media workers are: Al Jazeera correspondents Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, Al Jazeera camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, freelance camera operator Momen Aliwa, and freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi.
These horrific murders came after the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the United
Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression issued urgent warnings that Anas AlSharif’s life was in danger. For months, Israel tried to undermine Anas’s press credentials by peddling a wretched smear campaign against Al-Sharif, claiming without evidence that he was a “terrorist”.
Powerful governments failed to protect Al-Sharif from this assassination. As a result, on Sunday night, Israel took away a father, husband, and son simply for doing his job. Israel admitted to targeting Al-Sharif, remaining silent on the five other journalists it killed in the same attack.
These journalists are an inspiration to us. They have been working in the harshest conditions for 22 months, without respite. Despite the lack of significant international action, the unfolding genocide, and forced starvation, they keep reporting on the horrors they themselves are victims of.
On 23 January 2024, Journalists Against Apartheid (JAA) released a statement condemning the killings of 118 Palestinian journalists at that time recorded by the Gaza Ministry of Health – an unprecedented number. Nineteen months later, Israel killed a total of 269 Palestinian journalists, according to Al Jazeera’s data from the CPJ, the International Federation of Journalists, and shireen.ps.
Israel’s history of false accusations against journalists is distressing. The CPJ’s 2023 “Deadly
Pattern” report details five claims of terrorism or militant activity against journalists killed by Israeli forces between 2004 and 2018, and how many journalists
Israel has accused of being members or suspected members of militant organisations – all with questionable “evidence” or none at all. At least three journalists were killed by the IDF after these claims were made.
Aziz Younis, a Palestinian journalist now living in South Africa, wrote on Monday:
“Right now, I carry an anger that is not sudden or fleeting — it has been slow-cooked over time with injustice, oppression, and the silence of those who should have stood with us. It settles deep in the heart, weaves itself into your very being, and becomes almost unbearable to contain. Everything and anything we do will never be enough — but doing nothing is not an option. We cannot sit and talk about how busy we are, or why we cannot attend. Every single one of us must show up for every action in solidarity with journalists, write in our newspapers, use our media platforms, and do whatever is in our power. And even then, it will not be enough — yet it will matter.”
We are enraged by Western media that have repeated Israeli lies without scrutiny while silencing Palestinian voices, permitting this genocide to continue. Many media outlets have contributed to Israel and the United States’ disinformation campaign against Palestine, flouting basic journalistic principles. We demand that these media houses — including the New York Times and BBC — cease this disastrous propaganda.
We condemn South African media organisations who have undertaken sponsored propaganda trips to Israel and published this propaganda without declaring how these trips were funded. This falls far short of journalism ethics, and is shameful in a country where the media’s bravery was central to dismantling apartheid.
We stand in solidarity with protesters around the world who have condemned Israel’s reprehensible killings this week. Governments must act immediately to protect remaining Palestinian journalists before all of Gaza’s media workers are killed. We stand with international human rights organisations who recognise that Israel’s military actions and policies in Palestine amount to apartheid and genocide.
With this in mind, we make the following demands:
- Media organisations must call Israel’s media massacre what it is – a war crime
- We reject attempts to whitewash Israeli crimes through sponsored media trips, and call for media houses to cease these propaganda excursions to avoid complicity in genocide
- Israel must immediately release all arbitrarily detained Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and in Gaza.
- The Israeli media ban must end. Foreign correspondents must be allowed entry into Gaza.
Enquiries: Deshnee Subramany – 076 307 4414 or forjournalistssa@gmail.com
*Organisations have differing statistics on the number of media workers killed by Israel in Gaza because a genocide and media blackout mean we will never have a complete account of whom we have lost. Some explanations:
- Al Jazeera and Palestine Mission to the United Nations counts all media workers killed since October 2023 in Palestine: 272
- Committee to Protect Journalists counts the number of journalists in Palestine killed who are confirmed to have been conducting news gathering at the time of their murders: 189