World Press Freedom Day: Gaza conflict deadliest for journalists

The World Press Freedom Day is being marked today at a particularly perilous time for journalists globally, with Israel's war on Gaza becoming the deadliest conflict for journalists and media workers.

More than 100 journalists and media workers, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed in the first seven months of war in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), reports Al Jazeera.

Gaza's media office has the number at more than 140 killed, which averages to five journalists killed every week since 7 October.

Since the start of the war, at least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed and 77,816 others injured in Gaza. More than 8,000 others are missing, buried under the rubble.

Palestinians mourn local journalists Hassouna Sleem and Sary Mansour, who were killed in an Israeli strike on a house, at a hospital in the central Gaza Strip November 19, 2023. File Photo: REUTERS/Stringer

"Gaza's reporters must be protected, those who wish must be evacuated, and Gaza's gates must be opened to international media." Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF's Middle East desk, said in a statement in April.

"The few reporters who have been able to leave bear witness to the same terrifying reality of journalists being attacked, injured and killed … Palestinian journalism must be protected as a matter of urgency."

So far in 2024, 25 journalists and media workers have been killed, according to the CPJ.

At least 20 of those killed were in Palestine. While two were killed in Colombia, and one each in Pakistan, Sudan and Myanmar.

Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh, centre, hugs his daughter during the funeral of his son Hamza Wael Dahdouh, a journalist with the Al Jazeera television network, who was killed in a reported Israeli air strike in Rafah in the Gaza Strip on January 7, 2024. File Photo: AFP

In 2023, more than three-quarters of the 99 journalists and media workers killed worldwide died in the Israel-Gaza war, the majority of them Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

"Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price – their lives – to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth," CPJ Programme Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said.