Israel’s ‘double-tap’ strikes have killed many journalistspublished at 18:15 British Summer Time 25 August
Lucy Williamson
Middle East correspondent, reporting from Jerusalem
Almost 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the
beginning of the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists – and
the vast majority of them were Palestinian.
It is the world’s deadliest conflict for reporters, a
mirror of the vast human toll this war has taken on the population there.
The so-called “double-tap” bombing tactic used by
Israel is often fatal for journalists – who rush to the scene of the first
strike, only to be hit by a later one.
But Israel has also routinely targeted journalists it
accuses of working for Hamas, sometimes killing many of their media colleagues
alongside them.
As civilians, journalists covering conflicts are protected
under International law, unless they take an active part in the fighting.
Simply disseminating propaganda for the enemy doesn’t count.
Some of the world’s leading press freedom groups have accused Israel of
deliberately targeting journalists, which it denies.
It has blocked international journalists from reporting
freely from Gaza for the entire 22 months of this war – the first time this has
happened in any modern conflict.
But Israel routinely allows medics and aid workers in and
out of the Gaza Strip, and has provided no convincing explanation for why
international journalists remain banned.
