How impunity fuels Israel’s attacks on journalists in Gaza and Lebanon

The apparent targeted killing of three media workers in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon on Friday has renewed calls for ending impunity for Israel’s abuses.

Advocates say the mounting death toll of journalists killed by the Israeli military in the expanding conflict is a result of the failure of the international community – particularly the United States, Israel’s top backer – to hold the country accountable.

The killing of media workers in Lebanon came days after Israel baselessly accused several Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza of being members of Palestinian armed groups, raising concerns about their safety.

“The events of recent days are alarming, and should serve as a wake-up call for the US government and other states that have the power to hold the Israeli government to account and put a stop to this violence,” said Rebecca Vincent, campaign director at Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Friday’s deadly attack in Lebanon targeted a compound where several journalists and media workers were staying – in an area removed from fighting. There was no warning before the strike, which destroyed several buildings and left cars marked “press” covered in rubble.

“This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the location representing seven media institutions,” Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad Makary wrote on social media.

The killings add to one of the deadliest records for journalists covering a conflict in years.

At least 128 journalists and media workers are among the tens of thousands of people Israel has killed in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon over the past year — the deadliest time for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) began to track the killings more than four decades ago.

According to Palestinian officials, the death toll is even higher with 176 journalists killed in Gaza alone.

“CPJ is deeply outraged by yet another deadly Israeli airstrike on journalists, this time hitting a compound hosting 18 members of the press in south Lebanon,” CPJ Programme Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

“Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international law. This attack must be independently investigated and the perpetrators must be held to account.”

Labeling journalists ‘terrorists’

Israeli officials have regularly smeared the journalists slain in Gaza, accusing them without evidence of being members of Hamas and other groups.

This week, Israel accused six Al Jazeera journalists of being Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad “operatives” — sparking fear that it may be pre-emptively justifying their targeting. Al Jazeera categorically rejected the Israeli allegations.

Israel has killed several Al Jazeera journalists and their family members in Gaza since the war began, including the network’s correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Samer Abudaqa.

Critics accuse Israel – which banned foreign reporters from entering Gaza – targets journalists in the Palestinian territory to obscure the truth about its war crimes there.

CPJ has repeatedly documented Israel’s “pattern of smearing of Palestinian journalists with unsubstantiated ‘terrorist’ labels following their killings”.

The latest threat against Al Jazeera journalists comes as calls have mounted for Israel to allow foreign journalists into Gaza. Earlier this year, more than 70 media and civil society organisations signed an open letter calling on Israel to grant journalists access, a demand recently echoed by dozens of US lawmakers.

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and analyst, said Israel does not want the world to see what is happening in Gaza.

“On the one hand, they’re not allowing international journalists, and on the other hand, they’re assassinating those journalists who are there,” Buttu told Al Jazeera. “And then, they’re smearing those journalists who are there and somehow labelling them as targets.”

Buttu stressed that, under international law, people can only be considered legitimate targets in war if they are combatants who engage in fighting – accusing someone of being affiliated with an armed group, whether true or not, does not make them a legitimate target.

She added that Israel is “turning international law on its head” by labelling people as members of Hezbollah and Hamas to justify their killing.

Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at the US-based rights group DAWN said Israel’s accusations against Al Jazeera’s journalists is a “deliberate tactic to intimidate and silence those exposing its ongoing ethnic cleansing and forced displacement in northern Gaza”.

“This campaign against journalists reporting on the atrocities only further proves Israel’s desperation to cover up its war crimes and systematic genocide against Palestinians,” Jarrar added.

Impunity breeding impunity

While Israel has targeted journalists at an unprecedented rate during the ongoing war, it killed dozens more in the years preceding it. But there was no consequence for those killings and this impunity has paved the way for the current escalation, analysts say.

Zaha Hassan, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Al Jazeera that “the deadliest place to work these days for journalists is where Israel is waging war.”

The think tank published a video earlier this year, documenting the lives of Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Just before its release, one of the journalists it features, Sami Shehadeh, lost a leg in an Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp, where he was filming.

Hassan said the lack of accountability for the killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh – who was a US citizen – by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in 2022 was a “harbinger of things to come”.

For months after Abu Akleh’s killing, US legislators and advocates called for an independent US investigation into the incident.

While US and Israeli media outlets have reported that the US Department of Justice opened a probe into the shooting, American officials never publicly confirmed it, and any findings have not been released. No one has been punished for killing Abu Akleh.

“If justice could be denied to Shireen by her own government, how can we expect justice for Palestinian journalists in Gaza or any other journalists working in the killing fields of Palestine and Lebanon?” said Hassan.

“The US State Department and the White House recognise the critically important role journalists play in truth-telling. Unfortunately, they don’t put the same emphasis or value on truth or civil life when the truth is exposing Israeli war crimes or the civilian target is a Palestinian or Arab journalist.”

The US often stresses the so-called “rules-based order” when criticising policies by Russia and China, but has maintained its unconditional support for Israel despite well-documented abuses, including the killing of journalists.

Washington provides at least $3.8bn in military aid to Israel annually, and President Joe Biden has approved an additional $14bn in assistance to the US ally to help fund the current war.

While the US and other countries have failed to curb Israel’s attacks on journalists, advocates have also criticised the world’s mainstream media for inadequate attention and anger over Israeli attacks against the press.

“There are a lot of people who are complicit in this. It’s not just the governments, which are definitely complicit, but it’s also the fact that we haven’t heard international outrage from other journalists,” said Buttu, a close friend of Abu Akleh.

“These Palestinian journalists, these Lebanese journalists, their lives are no less worthy than those of international journalists, and the fact that we haven’t seen any sort of outrage is incredible.”

But some alternative media outlets have been outspoken in condemning the attacks against journalists by Israel.

This week, the US-based progressive publication Jewish Currents issued a statement in support of the six Al Jazeera journalists targeted by Israel.

“As a journalistic institution, we generally refrain from putting out statements or calling on others to take action, but our position as media workers compels us to stand in solidarity with our colleagues in Gaza,” it said.

“The normalization of Israel’s flagrant targeting of journalists has implications for reporters around the world.”

The publication added that the targeting of Palestinian journalists “should be treated as a crisis for the international media”.