KEY POINTS
- 13 journalists were killed per week
- Gaza death toll surges to 50,423
- 21 killed in newly reported strikes
- UN condemns Israeli attack
- Expulsion of Palestinians
PROVIDENCE, United States: Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 232 journalists making it the deadliest conflict for media workers ever recorded, said a report by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs’ Costs of War project.
It said that since the war started in Gaza on October, 2023 an average of 13 journalists were killed per week.
More journalists have been killed in Gaza than in both world wars, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia and the United States war in Afghanistan combined, the report found.
“It is, quite simply, the worst ever conflict for reporters,” said the Costs of War.
The report states that it remains unclear how many Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been specifically targeted by Israeli attacks, and how many, like tens of thousands of other civilians, were simply victims of Israel’s bombardment.
However, it cites Reporters Without Borders (RSF), based in Paris, which documented 35 cases where Israel’s military likely targeted and killed journalists due to their work by the end of 2024.
Among those killed was Al Jazeera reporter Hamza Dahdouh, who died on January 7, 2024, when a missile struck the vehicle he was traveling in southern Gaza. He was the fifth immediate family member of Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, to be killed in Israeli attacks.
21 killed in newly reported strikes
According to Al Jazeera, Israeli air strikes killed at least 21 people, including children, in Khan Yunis and the Nuseirat refugee camp since dawn Wednesday.
The health ministry in Gaza reported on Tuesday that 1,066 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed military operations, bringing the total death toll since the war began on October 7, 2023, to at least 50,423, with the majority of victims being civilians.
Hunger is becoming a growing concern in Gaza City, as bakeries have closed due to severe shortages of flour and sugar.
UN condemns Israeli attack
The United Nations on Tuesday condemned an Israeli army attack on an emergency convoy that killed 15 aid workers and medical personnel and demanded an investigation.
“I condemn the attack by the Israeli army on a medical and emergency convoy on 23 March resulting in the killing of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian workers in Gaza,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.
On Sunday, Netanyahu offered to let Hamas leaders leave Gaza but demanded the group abandon its arms. The Israeli leader has rejected domestic criticism that his government — one of the most right-wing in Israel’s history — was not doing enough to secure the hostages’ release.
“We are negotiating under fire… We can see cracks beginning to appear” in Hamas’s positions during ceasefire talks, he told his cabinet.
Expulsion of Palestinians
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz last week warned the military would soon “operate with full force” in more parts of Gaza.
In February, he announced plans for an agency to oversee the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
That followed Israel’s backing of a proposal from US President Donald Trump for the United States to take over the territory after displacing its 2.4 million Palestinian inhabitants.
Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 before launching a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire.
