Gaza’s Expendable Messengers

At normal times, journalists are lauded for their work as conveyors of news. However, once things get difficult for a side, all hell breaks loose. A measure of caution was exercised during armed conflicts, not because of any idealistic bent of mind but out of the compulsion of avoiding bad public reaction and a critical press. 

Gaza brings to the fore the worst beat for war correspondents since at least the two World Wars. Hundreds lie dead, and many more are left injured and traumatised by the death and destruction visited upon them. No less than 85 per cent of infrastructure and other structures have been destroyed, and more than 70,000 have been killed in the basically one-sided war under Israel’s overwhelming firepower.

Another telling tale of the protracted tragedy is the record number of journalists killed. Some 300 journalists have been killed in the 26 months since the war started after the Palestinian militant group Hamas first raided Israel and took hostages on October 7, 2023. The death toll would go up if the war prolonged further. 

The toll is the highest since the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists started compiling the records in 1992. This sharply contrasts with the 63 killed in the more than decade-long Vietnam War. In fact, Gaza is witness to more journalists being killed than during all major wars, including the two World Wars, combined.

Hell in Gaza

Foreign journalists have been banned in the Gaza Strip since the war began. Among the killed are those associated with international agencies like Al Jazeera, Associated Press and Reuters. That does not tell the full story, though. 

Almost all the killed are Palestinians, a large number of them contributing to foreign media. Since Israel has banned foreign journalists in the war-devastated territory, the latter hire stringers and correspondents locally to undertake reporting assignments.  

The risks are extremely high, but locals volunteer to take up the work just the same. Partly the professional challenge and partly the relatively attractive pay in local terms might have persuaded the news messengers to take the plunge at grave risks to their personal safety. 

Initially, the death toll of journalists made big news. Now the media seem too inured to the ever-increasing tally. The story occasionally serves as filler in the inside pages but rarely makes broadcast bulletin headlines or prominent front-page news space. 

The most advanced among democracies would have waged a war if their own nationals were among journalists killed in such staggering numbers. Their “friendlies” among media groups and human rights activists would probably have raised the banner of shock and fury over the breaching of their definition of redline. And the so-called advanced democracies would have come to their rescue by way of condemnation, stern warnings, sanctions, and even boots on the ground

There is nothing wrong with condemning such outrage, which, however, would sound nothing more than empty rhetoric when the goal post is shifted for the sake of convenience. Consistency is a currency whose circulation is considered counterfeit at the altar of expediency.  

But Palestinian journalists in Gaza are treated brutally, treated as if they are like “mercenaries” in the guise of journalists. Media watchdogs, declared as non-profit organisations and funded by Western individuals and groups, need to do much more. After all, it is their governments that have responded with stony silence to the conditions killing members of the vitally important but unarmed Fourth Estate.  

The European Commission could not overlook the pressing controversy over the sacking of 

Gabriele Nunziati, an Italian journalist, who queried whether Israel should be made to pay for Gaza's reconstruction. At a press meet on October 13, he asked: “You’ve been repeating several times that Russia should pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Do you believe that Israel should pay for the reconstruction of Gaza?” 

The Nova news agency attributed the dismissal to asking a “technically incorrect” question that caused “embarrassment” to the employing agency. But the National Federation of Italian Press maintained that it was “unacceptable that a question, no matter how uncomfortable” should cost the journalist his job.

‘Mass graveyard’

Amnesty International condemned Israel for not “just assassinating journalists but attacking journalism itself by preventing the documentation of genocide”. Indeed, Gaza has become a mass graveyard for the fourth estate. Either Israel needs to be pulled up, which is unlikely, or a dark precedent sets in.

Resumption of the war will mean more deaths for journalists and creating bigger tragic deaths. The precedent that might prove costly to those who now prefer to turn their attention elsewhere from the issue of information messengers being killed in record numbers. 

The red line against journalists in Gaza has been breached on such scale and for so long that future armed conflicts, too, might witness a repeat of the same. Willingness on the part of media watchdog groups is simply not coming forth, even as public trust in news outlets erodes steadily.  

American troops were alleged to have targeted Al Jazeera television crew in West Asian conflicts. The Arab network has an impressive number of audience in not only the Arab world but in other countries as well. The Qatari government finances the broadcaster just as most countries, including virtually all European democracies, have state-funded national news broadcasting on air.  

These are hard, uncertain and risky times. Even as individual news outlets fight tough to stem declining readership and falling size of listenership and viewership, the question of independent and professional press is as important today as it ever was.   

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)