Israel’s war on journalism
The war in Gaza has proved by far the most deadly for journalists this century. Some argue Israel is deliberately targeting them, writes Jeremy Rose.
Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq’s first published story dealt with what he described as Israel’s murder of his brother Ayman in 2014. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) would call it self-defence or mowing the lawn – a common phrase in Israel for the periodic attacks on Gaza aimed at depleting Hamas’ military capacity.
The essay – published on the We Are Not Numbers website – describes Ayman coming home, in the early 2000s, after five of his primary school mates had been killed by Israeli soldiers, and another 12 injured while playing.
By the time Israel invaded Gaza in what it dubbed Operation Cast Lead, in 2008, Ayman was in secondary school and once again he saw friends being killed.
Operation Cast Lead left 1400 Palestinians dead, 46,000 homes destroyed and more than 100,000 homeless. Thirteen Israeli soldiers died during the invasion.
The blockade that followed the war left Ayman and Ahmed’s disabled taxi-driver father unemployed as the supply of petrol dried up. As the eldest son, Ayman took on the role of breadwinner.
Then, in 2012, Israel again “mowed the lawn” in Operation Pillar of Defence – and once again hundreds were killed and thousands left homeless.
“When this war was over, Ayman was not the same,” Ahmed wrote.
His older brother joined Hamas’ armed resistance force – the Al Qassam Brigades.
It was a decision that would cost him his life. In 2014 Israel yet again invaded Gaza and Ayman was killed by a missile fired from an F16 as he made his way to battle the IDF
The world is divided on what to call the likes of Ayman. To Palestinians he’s a martyr, a freedom fighter, and a patriot to Israelis he’s a terrorist.
Some will praise him for his decision to join the armed struggle. Others will condemn him.
Ahmed chose another form of resistance: journalism.
In 2014 he helped set up We Are Not Numbers, a website that provides a platform for young Gazans to share their stories, in English, with the outside world.
Later he teamed up with Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham to bring the stories to an Israeli audience in Hebrew, a project called Across the Wall.
On October 21 of last year the IDF dropped a bomb on Ahmed’s family home, killing 21 members of his family – including 14 of his nieces and nephews all under the age of 13.
The house was in the south of Gaza in an area Israel had declared a safe zone.
Ahmed heard of the massacre in the UK, where’s he’s on scholarship.
He’s been tirelessly telling people the stories behind the numbers ever since.
But as we enter the seventh month of what a leading Holocaust scholar, Hebrew University professor Amos Goldberg, last week declared to be a genocide, the numbers tell other important and horrific stories.
The media has been updating the death count daily – currently it’s over 35,000, the vast majority women, children and civilian men – but there are other numbers that are less well known.
The Gaza media office says more than 140 journalists have been killed so far. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists has confirmed 92 Palestinian, five Lebanese and two Israeli journalist deaths since October 7.
Even the lower figure makes it by the far the deadliest war for journalists in the 21st century. Goldberg includes the targeting of journalists in his carefully argued case for declaring the assault of Gaza to be genocidal.
“What is happening in Gaza is genocide because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsions, displacement, famine, executions, the wiping out of cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of elites (including the killing of journalists) and the sweeping dehumanisation of the Palestinians — create an overall picture of genocide, of a deliberate conscious crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza.”
Ahmed Alnaouq is far from alone among Gaza’s journalists in having multiple family members murdered.
Al Jazeera’s bureau chief, Wael Al Dahdour - probably Gaza’s best-known journalist - lost his wife, son, daughter and grandchild, when an Israeli air strike hit their home in the Nuseirat refugee camp on October 25 last year.
On January 7 his son, Hamza Al Dahdouh, also a journalist, was killed by an Israeli air strike while travelling in a car, marked “press”, along with a colleague.
The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement in December saying it was alarmed by journalists in Gaza reporting death threats and subsequently their family members being killed.
Reporters Without Borders and a group of UN experts, including four special rapporteurs, have both asked the International Criminal Court to investigate whether Israel is targeting journalists.
If journalists are being targeted it is inevitable their families will also fall victims to Israel’s bombs.
Yuval Abraham - the Israeli journalist who partnered with Ahmed Alnaouq on the Across the Wall project - recently published an investigation on the progressive +972 website, revealing an AI programme called Lavender that identified 37,000 suspected militants in the first weeks of the war.
The article, based on interviews with six IDF intelligence officers, said Israel systematically targeted those on the kill list while they were home - usually at night.
If journalists are being targeted it is inevitable their families will also fall victims to Israel’s bombs.
Two of those interviewed claimed that in the early weeks of the war it was permissible for 15 to 20 civilians to be killed for every militant targeted. Last Sunday Israel closed Al Jazeera’s office in occupied East Jerusalem, confiscating broadcast equipment and taking the channel off air.
The move comes almost exactly two years after an IDF soldier shot and killed the American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Israelioccupied West Bank for Al Jazeera.
Israel’s targeting of journalists and their families, the closure of Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem office, the imprisonment and alleged torture of journalists, and the refusal to let foreign journalists enter Gaza amounts to a war on journalism.
Justice for Palestine is holding a vigil to mark two years since the shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh and protest the ongoing killing of Gazan journalists at Wellington’s Midland Park, at 11:30am on Saturday, May 11.
Jeremy Rose is a Wellington journalist and sometimes media commentator. He was a founding member of Alternative Jewish Voices.