November 2nd marks the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.
The International observation was established in 2013, with the date chosen to commemorate the killing of two French journalists on November 2nd 2013.
On November 1st, the U-N High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk made a statement saying the Middle East is now the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist.
The United Nations chief spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says the level at which Palestinian journalists are being killed is unseen in modern times.
"Today, the Secretary General delivered a message to the UN International Media seminar on peace in the Middle East, which is going on in Geneva. In his message, he warned that journalists in Gaza have been killed at a level unseen by any conflict in modern times. The ongoing ban preventing international journalists from Gaza suffocates the truth even further. He said at the same time, he added several journalists have also been killed or injured covering key stories impacting the occupied West. Bank. This is unacceptable. He said the voice of journalists must be protected and press freedom must be safeguarded."
In a 2024 special report from the Committee to Project Journalists, Israel and Haiti are ranked as the most likely places to allow the killing of journalists to go unpunished.In a recent strike the I-D-F killed Palestinian journalist Bilal Rajab, bringing the number of journalists and media workers killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023 to at least 183.
Also speaking at the UN Media seminar was the representative for Palestine, Dr Riyad Mansour.
"During the last one hundred years of conflicts in all corners of the globe, there were less than one hundred and eighty two journalists that lost their lives combined. It's obvious that this reason of killing this large number of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza strip is the occupying authorities want to silence their voices. They don't want you to know the reality of the atrocity and the genocide committed against the Palestinian people in the Gaza strip."
This year, UNESCO awarded its World Press Freedom Prize to all Palestinian journalists covering the conflict in Gaza.
Irene Khan is the UN's Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.At a recent presentation she told reporters that in the occupied territories, there is total impunity for the killing of journalists.
"The targeted killings of journalists, the arbitrary detention of dozens of them, the extensive destruction of press facilities and equipment in Gaza, the denial of access to international journalists, as you know, I think only one has been permitted to enter by Israel, the banning of Al Jazeera, the tightening of censorship seemed to indicate a strategy of the Israeli authorities to silence critical journalism and obstruct documentation of possible international crimes. We all know the deliberate killing of a journalist is a war crime, yet not a single killing of a journalist this past year, or for that matter, in previous years in the occupied Palestinian territory. has ever been properly investigated prosecuted or punished."
Anat Saragusti is the Director of Press Freedom at the Union of Journalists in Israel.
She says while the challenges faced by Israeli journalists are not comparable to those faced by Palestinian media, there is little room for independent media inside Israel.
"Another dimension is orchestrated and funded, sometimes a smear campaign against media outlets and against individual journalists. They call the commercial channels and the public broadcasting Israel, Al Jazeera, like they're engaged in treason, like they are Hamas supporters."Ms Saragusti says Israel is currently trying to pass a law that intends to expand the one banning foreign media they deem as a threat to Israel, meaning they will soon be able to ban and shut down any media in Israel they consider threatening."
She says the owner of Haaretz, which is the longest running newspaper currently operating in Israel, has been targeted after accusing Israel of enforcing an apartheid regime.
"The other day, the owner of Haaretz newspaper spoke in London saying something about militants of Hamas, and immediately, like they were waiting for it, immediately, all government ministers decided to defund Haaretz or don't give, or ban Haaretz from taxpayers money for advertisement, the government has to advertise the newspapers, and they incite against Haaretz and they delegitimise the journalists of Haaretz."
Eighty per cent of all killings of journalists around the world go unpunished.
As well as the scores of Palestinian journalists murdered in the conflict in Gaza, at least 40 have been injured, 2 are reported missing and 71 have been arbitrarily detained.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says the period since October 2023 has been the deadliest period for journalism since they began gathering data.
