RSF condemns the Israeli army's mass assault on journalists in northern and central Gaza
On 14 and 15 December, the Israeli army murdered three media professionals in northern Gaza and the central Gaza Strip. Some of the few remaining reporters in the northern region, subjected to a ground invasion by Israeli forces, were recently forced to evacuate their homes. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the killings of these journalists as a continuation of the war crimes committed by Israel.
Al-Jazeera cameraman Ahmad al-Louh, killed on 15 December 2024 was the last victim in a series of journalist murders committed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip in a two-day span. The 39-year-old media worker was filming a report on the Palestinian Civil Defence in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza when he was killed by an air strike. A previous strike in Nuseirat had destroyed his home just a few days prior.
On 14 December, the day before Ahmad al-Louh’s murder, two other journalists were killed by Israeli armed forces: Mohammed Balousha, a reporter for the Emirati channel Al-Mashhad who was mortally wounded by a targeted drone strike while reporting in the Sheikh Radwan district in northern Gaza, and Snd correspondent Mohammed Jaber al-Qarinawi, age 30, who was killed along with his wife and their three children by an isolated air strike, according to RSF’s information – a sign that his home had probably been targeted. Mohamed Balousha was known for his November 2023 report that revealed that infants’ bodies were decomposing in Gaza's al-Nasr hospital, whose staff had been evacuated by the Israeli army. Mohamed Balousha had previously been wounded by an Israeli sniper on 16 December 2023.
“These latest killings are a stark reminder of the ongoing assault by Israeli forces against media professionals in northern Gaza, where the handful of journalists remaining are now at risk of disappearing altogether. In parallel to ongoing attacks on media in central Gaza where displaced persons are now seeking refuge, this is a clear continuation of the Israeli authorities’ attempts to control the narrative on its war through any means possible. We repeat in the strongest possible terms that targeting journalists is a war crime, and these atrocious attacks must stop. It is time for concrete action by other states - in particular, Israel’s allies - to urge the Israeli government to immediately comply with international law.
Last journalists expelled from northern Gaza
Ninety-six percent of Gaza's journalists have been forcibly evacuated from their homes, and 92 percent have lost essential reporting equipment, according to data from RSF's local NGO partner, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ). In northern Gaza, where between 100,000 and 131,000 inhabitants were forcibly displaced by the Israeli army to Gaza City between 6 October and 18 November 2024, according to the United Nations, the few news professionals still on the ground are covering the siege of this area in appalling conditions that RSF has publicly condemned.
The creator of Sawt El Shemel, a Telegram news channel on the war in Gaza that translates to “The Voice of the North,” and the regional correspondent for the Palestinian news media Donia El-Watan — both of whom remain anonymous for security reasons — are among the masses of people forced to leave northern Gaza. “We were working in primitive conditions, made even worse by our evacuation, which forced us to take only the bare essentials, such as clothes,” the Donia El-Watan journalist told RSF.
The arrest and incommunicado detention of Osama al-Derini
Palestinian journalists in northern Gaza are also victims of arbitrary arrests by the Israeli armed forces. To date, the Israeli army has still not communicated the whereabouts of Osama al-Derini, a journalist for the Palestinian radio station Sawt El Shaab (“The Voice of the People”), who was arrested by Israeli soldiers on 24 October in the town of Beit Lahya along with a group of displaced persons. On 18 December, Moath Kahlout, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera English, was held for several hours at a checkpoint east of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. RSF's 2024 Round-up revealed that, in 2024, Israel became the world's third-largest prison for journalists.
The number of media professionals killed due to their work in Gaza since 7 October 2023 is now at 37 due to these recent journalist murders carried out by the Israeli army. The total number of Gazan journalists killed by Israeli soldiers during this conflict is over 150.
