By Anthony Bellanger
Since 7 October 2023, only shades of black have been visible in Palestine.
In 12 months, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), a worldwide organisation representing 600,000 media professionals in 150 countries, has recorded at least 138 journalists’ deaths during the course of the war in Gaza. Of these, 128 were Palestinians, five Lebanese, four Israeli and one Syrian. This death toll represents the bloodiest period in the history of journalism.
By way of comparison, the other major conflict in the world between Ukraine and Russia has resulted in the deaths of 18 Ukrainian journalists after 32 months of conflict.
The IFJ’s investigations, with the help of its Palestinian affiliate, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), clearly show that many of these victims were targeted by the Israeli army – a practice the International Court of Justice demanded the cessation of in October 2023, as international law requires.
This war in Gaza – now spread to Lebanon – is the will of the government of one man, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. He is trampling international conventions and even took the liberty of boasting about his military actions against civilians at the United Nations General Assembly. His pretext is ‘fighting terrorism’. Yet since the American conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, analysis shows that indiscriminate warfare and arbitrary strikes in the cause of combating terrorism are totally counterproductive. Evidence suggests that they reinforce radical ideologies and amplify the actions of the very organisations they are intended to oppose. Not only that, but these indiscriminate attacks on civilians create at least two generations of hatred and resentment against their aggressors and their descendants.
Since October 2023, the IFJ has made repeated appeals to the United Nations. We have demanded a ceasefire to allow civilians to leave the Gaza Strip (an area of around 365km2, a third the size of Paris). We have called for humanitarian and logistical aid to be delivered as close as possible to the population, including protective equipment for journalists. And we have joined the call for foreign journalists and media workers to be allowed into the enclave to document the war.
Nothing has happened. The Netanyahu government remains impervious, despite the incessant actions of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
In brazen defiance, Israel has ordered the continuation of strikes by its army, financed mainly by the United States (68%) and Germany (30%).
Dehumanisation
After the deadly attack perpetrated by Hamas in southern Israel on 7 October, which left more than 1,200 people dead and 251 hostages in captivity, the IFJ called journalists around the world to respect the truth and check the facts – not least because of the publication of one of the biggest ‘fake news’ stories of recent decades on the so-called beheaded babies.
Since then, debates have raged within editorial departments. Some fear being labelled pro-Palestinian; others that they are doing the bidding of Israel.
One consequence of this small-minded professionalism has been a kind of self-censorship that has resulted in the total dehumanisation of the Palestinian people. They have no-one but themselves to relate the story of their daily nightmare. When internet connections are authorised or in working order, the only way for the world to be kept informed is through publications on the social networking platforms of Gazan journalists.
The vast majority of the world’s media are effectively cut off from a huge news story whose daily horrors pass them by. Their only available sources are the journalists who are members of the PJS and the IFJ, who take all the risks to film and photograph with their phones. They are the only ones who are able to fulfil their mission, providing information from the battle front, even though they lack all but the bare essentials, for which they must pay premiums on the black market.
On the Israeli side, the dehumanisation of Palestinian civilians is orchestrated by the journalists themselves. In an interview with AFP, one of Channel 14‘s Israeli journalists, Hallel Bitton-Rosen, stated bluntly that her work focuses on “supporting the fighting forces that are protecting the country and its citizens from the vile terrorists who perpetrated the ”terrible massacre’’.
Is this self-censorship or propaganda?
Fortunately, many journalists who deserve that title are taking on their mission with professionalism and relaying the work of their colleagues in Gaza, while cross-checking their sources with the official communications of the two belligerents.
Solidarity centers for the media
For its part, the International Federation of Journalists and its member unions have raised several hundred thousand euros for journalists in Gaza via its International Safety Fund. At the end of July we opened the first media solidarity centre in the south of the enclave, in the Khan Younis region. The number of centres has now risen to two, with the help in particular of UNESCO, but it is nowhere near enough. Gazan journalists are determined to tell their story, and for so long as that is the case, it is the IFJ’s duty to support them doing this in whatever way we can.
A few days away from the first anniversary of the terrible 7 October attack, it is clear that this war has the potential to expose the tragic shortcomings of the United Nations, just as the Second World War did the League of Nations. The UN Security Council is paralysed, sclerotic and powerless in the face of an Israeli government that enjoys scandalous impunity.
When the dust settles from the rubble of Gaza, the historians of the 2030s will pass harsh judgement on the international community, if it still deserves that name, so divided is the world, in particular the world’s great ‘powers’. The West and the Arab world have, at best, issued weak and disconnected declarations, and at worst have financed the arming of the Israeli government. The international community must accept its responsibilities – and the sooner the better.
If international justice delivers on its obligations, the leaders of Israel and Hamas should be in the dock facing charges ranging from war crimes to crimes against humanity. Many other political leaders should appear for complicity in those crimes.
Apart from our IFJ colleagues, we no longer expect anything from anyone,’ lamented a Palestinian journalist in Gaza in September. “There have been so many deaths that we have nothing left to lose, not even our lives. If hell exists, I think I’m living in it right now. It’s a real massacre. It is beyond the imagination of anyone who is not here.”
(Anthony Bellanger is General Secretary, International Federation of Journalists)