Israel's military says it will never "deliberately target journalists" following death of Palestine TV journalist
Responding to an inquiry from CNN on the killing of Palestine TV journalist Nafez Abdul Jawad, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it “takes all operationally feasible measures to mitigate harm civilians including journalists. The IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists.”
Eyewitness and journalist Mohammad Al-Sawalhi told CNN on Thursday that Abdul Jawad was killed after an Israeli missile struck the Deir El-Balah house he was staying in. At least 14 people were killed, including 5 children, when the residential buildings were targeted, eyewitness, and journalist Tareq Al Hilou, who received information from health officials in Rafah, told CNN.
The IDF said it is not aware of any strikes at these coordinates. It said it will continue to counter threats and “remaining in an active combat zone has inherent risks”, given the ongoing exchanges of fire.
Some context: As of January 8, at least 79 journalists have been killed in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Monday. The deaths include 72 Palestinians, four Israelis, and three Lebanese, according to CPJ's data.
So what can explain the much higher death rate of journalist vs first responders for example, or soldiers in the most intense combat
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has recorded the death of 75 journalists in Gaza since Oct. 7 out of an estimated 1,000 working there before the war began — a mortality rate of 7.5%, which the IFJ has assessed far exceeds the death rate of US soldiers in past wars.
The organization cited figures by the US Department of Veteran Affairs, according to which 1.8% of US soldiers died in World War II (1939-45), 1.4% in the Korean war (1950-53), 1.7% in Vietnam (1955-75) and 0.06% in the first Gulf war (1991), in Iraq and Kuwait.
Next to killing journalists, they also get illegally detained, intimidated, harassed and their families come under fire.
https://cpj.org/2024/02/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/
As of February 11:
- 85 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead: 78 Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and 3 Lebanese.
- 16 journalists were reported injured.
- 4 journalists were reported missing.
- 25 journalists were reported arrested.
- Multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.
(And why is CNN still not fact checking.... just regurgitating IDF statements)
And not just in Gaza
https://www.commondreams.org/news/reuters-journalist-targeted
A Reporters Without Borders investigation released Sunday concluded that Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah and a group of his colleagues were intentionally targeted in southern Lebanon earlier this month in a pair of strikes launched from the direction of the Israeli border.
IDF indiscriminately targets anything that moves
About 100 bodies recovered after Israeli army withdrawal from two Gaza City neighbourhoods
Al Jazeera’s correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul says that rescue teams have managed to retrieve the bodies of about 100 Palestinians from the Tal al-Hawa and Remal neighbourhoods in Gaza City, after Israeli forces withdrew from those areas. Most of the bodies were killed by sniper bullets, al-Ghoul said.
Netanyahu doesn’t “know exactly” what Biden’s over the top comment meant, he says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has addressed President Joe Biden’s comments on Israel’s response in Gaza as being “over the top." “I appreciate Biden’s support for Israel since the beginning of the war, I don’t know exactly what he meant by that,” Netanyahu said in an interview with ABC News aired Sunday.
Netanyahu went on to say Israel has “responded in a way that goes after the terrorist and tries to minimize the civilian population.” ABC's Jonathan Karl then reminded Netanyahu of the death toll reported by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza that now tops 28,000. “I’d be cautious with the Hamas statistics, and I can tell you that according to warfare experts (…) we brought down the civilian to terrorist casualty ratio down below 1 to 1 which is considerably less than in any other theatre of similar warfare," Netanyahu said.
On Thursday, President Biden offered one of his sharpest rebukes to date on Israel’s military conduct in Gaza, saying the operation to go after Hamas had been “over the top.” Echoing some of his other comments to ABC, in a separate interview with Fox News on Sunday, Netanyahu said those who say the military can’t go into the southern Gaza city of Rafah essentially want Israel to lose. The Israeli prime minister claimed there is “plenty of room” for Gaza’s civilians to evacuate to ahead of a ground assault on Rafah.
Slip of the tongue, typo, but yes they are trying to minimize / decimate the civilian population.
Plenty of room to evacuate to?
There are currently more people in Rafah than the population of San Diego in California. (And 5x as many in Rafah as before the war started)
San Diego has an area size 2.7x greater than the whole of the Gaza strip...
Compared at the same scale
Imagine evacuating the entire population of San Diego and putting them err in the San Diego Zoo?
