More journalists and media workers have been killed in the besieged Gaza Strip since October 2023, when Israel launched its ongoing genocidal war there, than in both World Wars and other major wars combined, a new report says.
In his thorough report - titled “News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World” – published by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs on Tuesday, American investigative journalist Nick Turse said that the Gaza war has killed 232 journalists and media workers as of March 26 this year, citing an Al Jazeera investigation and recent updates from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The shocking figure - averaging about 13 fatalities per month - surpasses the total number of journalist deaths in the US Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars (including conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan combined, he added.
The report underscored that local journalists bear the brunt of these dangers, as the decline in Western foreign correspondents has led the global media to increasingly rely on local reporters who often operate with limited resources and protection, a shift that not only endangers their lives but also compromises the quality and depth of conflict coverage.
“Most reporters harmed or killed, as is the case in Gaza, are local journalists. The world increasingly relies on these often underpaid, under-resourced, and under-equipped journalists to carry out the most dangerous types of coverage as the number of Western foreign correspondents dwindles,” the report said.
Turse stressed in his report that the Israeli regime’s ban on foreign reporters in Gaza, coupled with its killing of Palestinian reporters, means there are far fewer journalists skilled at translating the news out of the war-ravaged territory to the American public.
“This is especially problematic since the US approved around $18 billion in security assistance for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere in the year following October 2023,” he added.
Thirty-seven journalists were killed in the Gaza Strip during the first month of the 2023 Gaza War, marking the deadliest month recorded by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) since it started tracking data in 1992, the report further said.
Citing the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, the report also said that some 380 journalists in Gaza have also been wounded as of January this year.
“It's unclear how many Palestinian reporters in Gaza have been intentionally killed because of their work and how many were simply the victims, like tens of thousands of fellow civilians, of Israel’s bombardment of a densely populated 140-square mile strip of land,” Turse further said.
The report, citing Reporters Without Borders (RSF), stressed that there have been at least 35 cases since October 2023 where there is enough information to confirm the journalists killed were “directly targeted” by Israel- forces “because of their work.”
The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza, which was launched on October 7, 2023, has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured some 112,000 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble.
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https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/04/02/745441/Palestine-journalists-Gaza-Israel-World-Wars-Turse
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