(NEW YORK)— Two Al Jazeera journalists killed by an Israeli missile strike in Gaza on Wednesday have renewed fears that correspondents are being deliberately targeted in a conflict that has claimed the lives of more journalists than any other over the last nearly 25 years.
Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul and photographer Rami al-Refee were the 112th and 113th journalist or media worker to be killed since the conflict began last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Journalist Al-Ghoul was reportedly wearing a press vest when he was killed. The organization has called the conflict the deadliest for journalists since it began collecting data in 1992.
Having reporters on the ground in a war zone is critically important to keeping the public informed about the tragic human cost and realities of conflict. Because neither Israel nor Egypt are allowing international journalists unrestricted access to Gaza, Palestinian journalists are among the only reporters on the ground and their loss is not only a tragedy at the individual level, but a loss for the world as their perspective on the conflict is critical to understanding what is happening and why.
The two journalists were reporting near the Gaza home of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, who was assassinated in Iran earlier Wednesday.
CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg, noting that this was the second strike on an Al Jazeera journalist in a car during the conflict, said it raised “really disturbing questions about whether or not journalists are being deliberately targeted.”
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