Israel has killed more than 170 journalists in Gaza since October 2023, according to the CPJ [Getty]
International journalists’ groups have slammed Israel’s killing of two Palestinian journalists in Gaza on Monday, urging that more is done by the international community to protect reporters.
Israeli forces killed Palestine Today correspondent Mohammed Mansour, along with his wife and son, in a strike on their house in Khan Younis.
In a separate strike, 23-year-old Al Jazeera Mubasher reporter Hossam Shabat was killed in an airstrike on his car in Beit Lahia. Footage verified by the Guardian, shows people gathering around the shattered and smoking car and pulling a body out of the wreckage.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) highlighted that illegality of deliberately killing of journalists and called for an investigation.
“The deliberate and targeted killing of a journalist, of a civilian, is a war crime,” said CPJ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg, adding that the press freedom group is investigating other instances of journalists being killed by Israel.
“That would amount to a war crime. Journalists and civilians must never be targeted,” she said.
The Israeli army conformed in a statement that it had killed the two journalists, describing them as “terrorists”.Â
The CPJ had previously slammed Israel’s “smearing of killed Palestinian journalists with unsubstantiated ‘terrorist’ labels”.
The army appeared to have already signalled its intent to kill Shabat and other Palestinian journalists in October 2024, when it accused him and five other Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza of being Hamas and Islamic Jihad members.
Shabat and the Doha-based media network denied the claims.
Israel has killed more than 170 journalists in Gaza since October 2023, according to the CPJ. A higher figure is given by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, who say that 208 journalists and media workers – including Shabat and Mansour – have been killed.
