by Dr Sara Torsner

Conflict poses deadly threats to journalists and their work to report verifiable and reliable information to the public. These threats directly and violently undermine the capacity of journalists to document the reality of conflict, including the experiences of civilian populations and humanitarian needs. They also undermine the provision of journalistic information as an antidote mis- and disinformation which is often spread by belligerent parties.

Between 2000-2023 (October 31) press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (also known by the French abbreviation RSF) documented 844 cases of journalist killings – corresponding to nearly half (45 percent) of all journalist killings globally during the time period – in seven countries experiencing war: Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Israel/Palestine and Yemen.

The outbreak of war between Israel and Gaza which started on October 7 is the most recent example of the devastating and lethal consequences journalists face when working to document the horrors of conflict.

With 34 journalists killed during the first two weeks, the onset of this war is now described by press freedom watchdogs as ‘the deadliest of any armed conflict in the world (for journalists) since the start of the 21st century’. As such the conflict has also generated a significant increase in the proportion of media professionals killed in war zones globally with figures rising from 32.8% in 2022 to 43.2% in the first ten months of 2023.

To date (as of November 7) 37 journalists killings, including 32 Palestinian journalists, four Israeli journalists and one Lebanese journalist, have been documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which keeps an up-to-date record of confirmed journalist casualties connected to the conflict.

CPJ also states that several ‘unconfirmed reports of other journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt, or threatened, and of damage to media offices and journalists’ homes’ are currently being investigated.

According to RSF over ‘50 media premises [in Gaza] have been completely or partially destroyed by Israeli strikes´, including the Agence France-Presse bureau on 3 November.

The intensified Israeli blockade of Gaza has imposed further restrictions on news reporting from within the enclave with power, Internet and cellular blackouts severely limiting communications.

The figure of journalist killings connected to the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war now exceeds the number of journalists killed as a result of the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022 (to date CPJ has recorded the deaths of 17 journalists and media workers in connection to the war in Ukraine).

Urgent calls to bring these exceptional levels of violence to a halt and protect the lives of journalists covering the Israel-Gaza war in accordance with international law are being voiced by the international community including by UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

In a press conference on 6 November the Secretary-General urged all parties of the conflict to respect all obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians highlighting the unrivalled lethal dangers faced by journalists and UN aid workers operating in the conflict.

Recalling UN Security Resolution 2222/2015 which stipulates that journalists, media professionals and associated personnel covering conflict situations must be protected as civilians, and that media equipment and offices constitute civilian and not military objects that must not be targeted - UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay has called ‘on regional and international actors to take immediate action to ensure that international law is respected’. In the statement she emphasised that ‘Journalists should never, under any circumstances, be targeted. And it is the responsibility of all actors to ensure that they can continue to exercise their profession safely and independently.’

In times of conflict journalists play a crucial role in exposing human rights violations and war crimes by belligerent parties – many times despite great personal risk. Their work ultimately serves to establish a public record of facts that can contribute to holding perpetrators of serious violations to account. Yet when such crimes – as recognised in international law – are committed against journalists – legal redress is almost always absent.

Such impunity is a pernicious and pervasive problem of global scope. CPJ data shows that full judicial accountability has only been achieved in 5 percent of all cases of journalist murders (in 47 out of 956 cases) recorded by the organisation since 1992. Research also shows that war and conflict are key structural enablers of impunity for crimes against journalists.

The fact that the targeting of journalists is now consistent feature of modern warfare signals an urgent need to enforce and restore international rules of protection while strengthening mechanisms of accountability for attacks on journalists.

Dr Sara Torsner is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Freedom of the Media, University of Sheffield