ICC to investigate deaths of Palestinian “Journalists” attributed to IDF
An NGO media watchdog has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court asking them to investigate the deaths of over 100 journalists during the war they attribute to the IDF. However, other investigative journalists found that these “journalists” may have actually been operatives for the terrorist organizations.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an NGO media watchdog, says it has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Palestinian journalists killed or injured in Gaza. RSF is calling on the ICC to investigate claims that the IDF has committed war crimes against at least eight Palestinian reporters killed between December 20 and May 20, and one other who sustained injuries. This is the third complaint the RSF has filed with the ICC since the beginning of the war.
“All concerned journalists were killed (or injured) in the course of their work,” RSF said in a statement.
The RSF claims that it had “reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF (Israel Defence Force) attacks against civilians.”
Antoine Bernard, RSF advocacy and assistance director, said: “Those who kill journalists are attacking the public’s right to information, which is even more essential in times of conflict.”
In January, the ICC stated that it was investigating potential crimes against journalists, claiming that more than 100 reporters have been killed since the beginning of the war.
RSF claims that 105 journalists were killed in Gaza but only listed 23 of them. Several worked for terrorist organizations’ media outlets, but those affiliations are not listed on the RSF website.
The recent RSF complaint includes the case of two Palestinian journalists, Hamza Wael Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria, killed in January while working for Al Jazeera.
The Israeli army told AFP at the time it had “struck a terrorist who operated an aircraft that posed a threat to IDF troops.”
Other journalists mentioned in the RSF complaint are Ahmed Badir, Yasser Mamdouh, Ayat Khadoura, Yazan Emad Al-Zwaidi, Ahmed Fatima, and Rami Bdeir.
Indeed, just a few weeks after Oct.7, Honest Reporting, a media watchdog, reported that international media outlets gave “an uncritical platform over the last month to independent Gaza journalists and social media influencers who either infiltrated Israel to cover Hamas’ atrocities on October 7 or praised them.”
It should be noted that the IDF warned international media outlets that the safety of journalists could not be guaranteed inside the Gaza war zone.
In January, UK-based independent investigative journalist and media critic David Collier reported that claims of intentionally targeted journalists were without foundation. Collier investigated the deaths of 107 people who presented themselves as journalists in Gaza by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
“Seventy names on the Hamas list are also on the list presented by the CPJ,” Collier wrote. “During the research, social media accounts for 100 of the 107 named journalists were identified, representing 93% of the 107 journalists listed. The Hamas list was quickly found to be full of errors, containing many Hamas or Islamic Jihad members, along with others who are not connected to news gathering or reporting.”
He went on to report that 35 of the 70 named journalists on the CPJ list openly associated with proscribed terror groups and were, therefore, active parts of terror organizations at war with Israel.
“Over half of the people that the CPJ named work for media outlets that are run either by Islamic Jihad or Hamas. That’s the Al-Aqsa news channel, Palestine Today, the Voice of Prisoners radio. … These are all outlets that are effectively Hamas- or Islamic Jihad-led,” Collier said.
“Some of them [the journalists] we know have communication centers for those terrorist groups,” he said. “In other words, if somebody is there, and he’s helping the Hamas terrorists to communicate with each other, he’s part of that military. He’s a legitimate target.”
The #Gaza war has exposed more than a few professionals who moonlighted as terrorists: teachers, doctors, aid workers, journalists.
They betrayed and endangered their professional colleagues, their pupils, patients, aid recipients, and readers. https://t.co/ojDox7oYcw— Fania Oz-Salzberger
פניה עוז-זלצברגר (@faniaoz) February 11, 2024
This was corroborated in a report by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
“The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center’s comprehensive examination of the 131 names revealed that approximately 60% were operatives in or affiliated with the terrorist organizations, Fatah or the Palestinian Authority,” the report concluded. The report also cited cases in which journalists were embedded in the terrorists operating on the ground, even actively participating in the events. There were also cases in which terrorists wore PRESS vests to carry out terrorist attacks, knowing that the IDF does not attack media personnel.
After the 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense, the IDF reported that Hamas and Islamic Jihad used journalism and journalists as shields for terrorist activity, embedding their infrastructure and command structure in buildings housing the media and using the communications hardware to direct hostilities. Hamas terrorists disguised themselves as journalists and traveled in cars marked as media. Some terrorists even acted as journalists while carrying out terrorist activities.
RSF has not related to Israeli journalists murdered by Hamas. Times of Israel reported that Ynet photographer Roee Idan was murdered in his hometown of Kfar Aza, Israel Hayom photographer Yaniv Zohar was murdered in Nahal Oz along with his wife and two daughters, and Kan news editor Ayelet Arnin and Maariv reporter Shai Regev were murdered at the Nova music festival near Re’im.
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