Palestinian media rights group condemns killing of two journalists by Israel

A Palestinian journalists’ rights group has condemned the recent killing of two Palestinian journalists by Israeli occupation forces in less than 24 hours in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Journalists Protection Center (PJPC) said on Saturday that the Israeli war on the besieged territory has been the deadliest for members of the press than any other conflict over the past eight decades.  

“The targeting and killing of journalists in Gaza by the occupation army has reached levels unprecedented since World War II and represents a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights,” the PJPC said.

“The continuation of these crimes and violations and the failure to hold their perpetrators accountable indicates that the occupation government has external support that allows it to act in this horrific and inhumane manner,” the group added.

The PJPC also said that “the killing has become the main weapon to silence journalists in Gaza.”

Meanwhile, the Gaza-based Government Media Office announced in a statement that photojournalist Bilal Rajab was killed on Friday when an Israeli airstrike targeted a group of people near the popular Firas Market in the center of Gaza City.

The statement urged the international community and international journalist groups to prosecute Israel before the international courts for its crimes against Palestinians and journalists.

Press group demands intl. probe into Israeli killing of journalists in Gaza, Lebanon

A prominent journalists’ rights groups has called for an international investigation into Israel’s pattern of killing journalists in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Palestinian journalist Baraa Ali Daghish was killed by the Israeli army during an airstrike on a house north of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Guterres calls for protecting Gaza journalists 

Meanwhile, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has denounced the Israeli army’s killing of journalists in Gaza as “unacceptable”, calling for their protection from the genocide that the regime is perpetrating in the blockaded coastal sliver.

In a message addressed to the thirtieth United Nations International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East held at the UN office in Geneva on Friday, Guterres also criticized the continued Israeli ban preventing international journalists from entering Gaza.

He noted that journalists in Gaza have been “killed at a level unseen in any conflict.”

The UN secretary-general added that journalists covering developments in the occupied West Bank were also killed or injured by the Israeli army.

Guterres called for the protection of journalists and renewed his call for an end to the Israeli attacks and occupation.

“It is high time for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon with the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, the effective delivery of humanitarian aid, and irreversible progress to a two-state solution,” he pointed out.

Journalists operating in the Palestinian territory are faced with increased dangers as they report on the conflict amidst Israeli ground assaults and airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and power outages.

So far, Israel has killed at least 43,314 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured 102,019 others there.

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