Summary
- An Israeli airstrike killed five Al Jazeera
journalists.
- The attack targeted a media tent near al-Shifa
Hospital.
- Victims include reporters and cameramen from Al
Jazeera.
- Global condemnation calls it assault on press freedom.
- Protests demand justice for the journalists' deaths.
On Wednesday, journalists, students, activists, and civil society members staged protests in several cities, including Cape Town, South Africa; Manila, Philippines; and London, United Kingdom, to urge their governments to pressure Israel to permit international media to enter Gaza and end Gaza war crimes and genocidal conflict in the region.
Cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, as
well as Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, were
murdered in an Israeli hit on their media tent outside al-Shifa Hospital in
Gaza City late Sunday.
Since Israel's war on Gaza started after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7,
2023, al-Sharif has been one of Gaza's most recognizable figures because of his
consistent reporting of the situation on the ground.
At least 61,722 people have died and 154,525
have been injured in Israel's conflict in Gaza. During the October 7, 2023,
attacks in southern Israel, an estimated 1,139 individuals were killed and
almost 200 were captured.
Members of civil society and journalists
gathered at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town on Wednesday to express their
anger at al-Sharif’s murder, sporting placards with one reading “your voice was
louder than their bombs”.
The location is significant, said Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from Cape Town, as
“it’s been an important signal against oppression here in South Africa, especially during the decades of apartheid”.
The people gathered here
“have condemned what Israel has done”,
Miller said.
“They want the entry of international journalists into Gaza in addition to the work being done by Palestinian journalists,”
she said.
“People here are angry.”
Journalist Zubeida Jaffer told Miller,
“I was one of the journalists who were targeted, you know those media that documented apartheid, so this really resonates with me.”
Miller said,
“The South African government has previously condemned the killing of journalists in Gaza, specifically in 2022 when Shireen Abu Akleh was killed. The South African government had said it was a violation of international law.”
Before being slain by Israeli soldiers during a
raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank,
Palestinian-American journalist Abu Akleh spent 25 years working for Al
Jazeera.
South Africa filed a complaint before the
International Court of Justice in December 2023, alleging that Israel had
committed Gaza war crimes that included genocide.
According to Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull, reporting
from London, reporters from the UK sections of the National Union of
Journalists paid their condolences to the deceased Al Jazeera employees outside
the prime minister's home at Number 10 Downing Street on Wednesday.
According to Hull, the reporters read out the
names of all the journalists who had been killed since Israel's attack on Gaza
started while holding placards with their names on them. They then
"symbolically, recited Islamic funeral prayers" for the deceased on
Sunday.
Those in attendance on Wednesday "want
outright condemnation and nothing less," Hull added, while British Prime
Minister Keir Starmer on Monday "talked about his grave concern"
regarding the murders of the Al Jazeera journalists.
Additionally, according to Lo, these
demonstrators came to call on "the international community to ramp up
pressure on Israel to stop its genocide, including for the Philippine
government to cut its trade and defense ties with Israel."
The third-largest importer of Israeli weapons is
the Philippines.
The Philippines supported a resolution passed by
the UN General Assembly in June calling for an immediate and permanent
ceasefire in Gaza. Along with calling for Israel to remove its blockade of
humanitarian supplies in Gaza, this resolution denounced Israel's use of famine
as a weapon of war.
How has international opinion responded to the killing of these journalists?
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called
for an independent and impartial investigation into the targeted strike on the
journalists. U.N. experts and officials have described the killings as
deliberate and a serious violation of international norms protecting
journalists.
Irene Khan, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom
of opinion and expression, called the killings "really murder," emphasizing
that this was a deliberate strategy to silence independent voices reporting
from Gaza. She stressed the need for protection of journalists and
international access to Gaza to ensure truth and accountability.
Organizations such as Reporters Without Borders
(RSF) condemned Israel's actions as targeted killings and murder.