GAZA, (PIC)
The Government Media Office (GMO) in the Gaza Strip announced that the number of journalist martyrs has risen to 165, after the martyrdom of the journalists Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi.
In a statement on Wednesday, the GMO condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli targeting and killing of Palestinian journalists, holding the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for committing such a heinous crime.
The GMO called on the international community, international organizations, and those concerned with journalistic work in the world to deter Israel and prosecute it in international courts for its ongoing crimes and to pressure it to stop the crime of genocide and the crime of assassinating Palestinian journalists.
The International Federation of Journalists said that “these crimes against media professionals and journalists in Gaza must be stopped immediately.”
“The sooner the International Criminal Court investigates the killing of journalists, the better,” it added in a statement on Wednesday evening.
For its part, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned “the crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces against a group of colleagues while they were carrying out their professional duty of covering events in the al-Shati refugee camp in central Gaza, where the Israeli occupation’s war machine directly assassinated the two martyred colleagues Ismail al-Ghoul, correspondent for Al-Jazeera, and the cameraman Rami al-Rifi”.
The Syndicate said in a statement, “This new crime represents a flagrant violation of all international laws and norms that guarantee the protection of journalists and ensure their freedom of work.”
“The Journalists Syndicate holds the occupation forces and their leaders fully responsible for this crime, which comes in the context of escalating assassinations within a systematic policy to suppress the truth and silence the free Palestinian voice,” it added.
The Syndicate called on the international community, the International Federation of Journalists, and human rights and humanitarian institutions to “take immediate and urgent action to condemn this crime and work to provide the necessary protection for Palestinian journalists.”
It also called for an independent international probe into the attack to hold those responsible for these crimes accountable and ensure that they do not evade punishment for their crimes against the Palestinian people.
Earlier on Wednesday, Al Jazeera announced the martyrdom of its correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Ismail al-Ghoul, and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, in an Israeli army bombing that targeted them in Gaza City.
It explained that “an Israeli army drone directly targeted them while they were covering the news from near the home of the Chairman of Hamas Political Bureau, martyr Ismail Haneyya.”
