By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
Palestinian Territory – Euro-Med Monitor strongly condemns Israel’s direct, deliberate attack on a tent housing Palestinian journalists in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, at dawn today(Monday 7 April). The attack killed two people, including one journalist, and injured nine additional journalists, making it a blatant and intentional crime carried out by Israel with full knowledge of its consequences.
The Euro-Med Monitor field team documented the killing of Helmi Al-Faqaawi, correspondent for Palestine Today News Agency, and Youssef Al-Khazandar, a civilian assisting the group ofjournalists, in the attack. Nine other journalistswere injured, including photojournalist Hassan Islayeh, in the direct and unprovoked Israeli strike on the journalists’ tent near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The bombing set some of the journalists on fire while they were still alive—in a horrifying scene that underscores Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip.
In the aftermath of the attack, the Israeli army released a statement admitting to the targeting of the journalists’ tent, claiming that Hassan Islayeh was the intended target. Without providing any substantiated evidence, the army alleged that Islayeh was affiliated with a Palestinian factionand was operating under the guise of journalism through his media company.
The statement further accuses Islayeh of documenting and filming the events of 7 October 2023, when Palestinian factions launched attacks on Israeli military sites bordering the Gaza Strip,and references his activities on social media as justification for the strike. Islayeh has been a frequent target of Israeli incitement campaigns, particularly by Israeli media outlets, due to his journalistic work and documentation of Israeli rights violations in the Strip.
This incident is part of a broader, deliberate campaign by Israeli forces to suppress independent reporting from the Gaza Strip bytargeting those who document and expose the reality on the ground, especially amid the ongoing genocide. The glaring lack of any international accountability mechanisms or legal consequences has emboldened Israeli forces to continuecommitting these crimes with impunity, making the Strip the deadliest zone in the world for journalists.
“Burning a journalist alive in Gaza is not merely an attempt to silence the truth,” stated Euro-Med Monitor’s Legal Department Director Lima Bustami. “Israel already relies on something far more powerful—the world’s indifference to that truth.”
Bustami explained that Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists also sends a chilling message: “Your truth means nothing. We can kill you with cameras in your hands, and no one will save you.”
Bustami went on to describe Israel’s crimes against Palestinian journalists as “a display of power and a practical declaration of impunity”.
Israel’s claims regarding the targeting of journalist Islayeh, even if hypothetically valid, do not in any way justify its attempt to kill him. Journalists are protected under international humanitarian law, including the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which clearly states that civilians—including journalists performing their professional duties in conflict zones—do not lose their legal protection simply because they report from war zones or convey information from the front lines.
Even a journalist classified as a war correspondent does not constitute a legitimate target unless directly participating in hostilities—something Israel has neither proven nor provided any credible evidence for in the case of Islayeh. Thus, Islayeh’s targeting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of armed conflict and a full international crime, warranting legal accountability and prosecution.
Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists is a primary objective of its genocide. This is evidenced by the series of horrific crimescommitted by Israel against journalists in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October 2023 start of its genocide against Palestinians in the besieged enclave. To date, 211 journalists have been killed, and dozens more have been injured or arrested. These attacks are accompanied by systematic incitement campaigns and policies aimed at stripping journalists of their professional status—a deliberate attempt to justify their unlawful targeting and silence the voice of truth in the Gaza Strip.
As part of the broader genocidal campaign it is carrying out in the Gaza Strip, Israel has killed at least 15 Palestinian journalists since the beginning of this year alone.
These crimes against journalists are an integral component of Israel’s deliberate policy to silence the voices of Palestinian victims and obstruct the documentation of atrocities committed against the civilian population in the Strip.
Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian journalists has been systematic and widespread. It has targeted them while they are in the field, wearing clearly marked press vests; inside their media offices; in journalist tents set up near hospitals to facilitate coverage; and even in their homes with their families, when entire buildings were bombed and collapsed upon them.
Israel must be held fully accountable for these grave violations, which represent a flagrant breach of international law and a blatant contradiction of its obligations to protect journalists and uphold press freedom in exposing the truth and revealing the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
The aforementioned attacks amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and further constitute an element of the genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip; the attacks are part of a sustained pattern of violations aimed at eliminating the Palestinian people physically, psychologically, and historically.
Targeting journalists and attempting to erase evidence of genocide are central to Israel’sgenocidal campaign. Israel’s crimes are not limited to mass killings of civilians, but extend to eliminating witnesses who can convey and document the crimes through their tools and testimonies. Attacks on journalists and documentation efforts, and the silencing of independent voices, are not only severe violations of international law, but are also essential elements in the crime of genocide, which seeks to obliterate the targeted group’s existence, voice, and memory.
Moreover, the absence of documentation denies victims recognition of their rights and undermines efforts to pursue accountability, enabling the continued perpetration of crimes with impunity and reinforcing Israel’s entrenched policy of escaping justice for the atrocities it commits in the Gaza Strip.
Since the start of the genocide, Israel has systematically barred journalists and international media representatives from accessing the Gaza Strip, except for a few individuals embedded with Israeli military forces. These individuals have been allowed into the enclave under strict conditions that limit their movement, and have only been permitted to report from areas approved by the Israeli army. These restrictions aim to isolate the Strip from the outside world and obscure the truth about the Israeli crimes committed against Palestinian civilians, contributing to the erasure of evidence and the concealment of the ongoing genocide.
Just days ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented that Israel wasresponsible for approximately 70% of all journalist killings worldwide in 2024, marking the highest single-country toll in any one year since the committee began documenting such incidents nearly three decades ago.
The policy of impunity enjoyed by Israel in the absence of any effective international mechanisms to hold it accountable for the crimes it commits against Palestinian journalists empowers it to continue its crimes, includingviolations of press freedom and the right to access information.
Accordingly, a comprehensive international investigation must be opened into the violations and crimes that the Israeli occupation army has committed, and continues to commit, against Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip. Immediate actions are needed to hold allperpetrators accountable, compensate the victims, and pressure Israel to stop the direct targeting and deliberate killing of journalists, ensuring the protection of their work and enabling them to carry out their mission, which is to report the truth. International journalists and news agency crews should also be allowed to enter and work in the Gaza Strip without restrictions or conditions, and their safety should be ensured.
All countries, individually and collectively, must assume their legal responsibilities and act urgently to stop the genocide in the Gaza Strip in all its forms, and to take all practical measures to protect Palestinian civilians there. Euro-Med Monitor stresses the need to ensure Israel’s compliance with international law and the rulings of the International Court of Justice, and to guarantee accountability for its crimes against Palestinians. In addition, the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defencemust be implemented at the earliest opportunity,and the Court must be allowed to bring them to international justice.
The international community must impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel right away due to its systematic and grave violations of international law. These sanctions should include prohibiting the export of weapons to Israel; the purchase of weapons from it; the halting of all forms of political, financial, and military support and cooperation; the freezing of financial assets of those responsible for crimes against Palestinians and the imposing of travel bans on them; and the suspension of any trade privileges and bilateral agreements that grant Israel economic benefits that enable it to continue committing genocide against Palestinians.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe
8 April 2025
Source: countercurrents.org