Israeli forces reportedly targeted and killed Palestinian journalist Hasan ‘Abdel Rahim Hamad on Oct. 6, 2024, bringing the total number of Palestinian journalists killed to 176, which experts say constitutes war crimes.
The attack was carried out after he spent the previous night voice-recording and publishing videos streaming the latest developments in Jabalia, and the latest video he posted was just half an hour before being targeted.
The 19-year-old Hamad, who worked at Media Town Company and cooperated with different media institutions, was covering and filming the Israeli bombardment and ground attack on the Jabalia refugee camp from his house.
On May 13, 2024, Hamad reportedly received a message on WhatsApp from an Israeli number threatening to kill him and his family if he continued reporting on Israel’s war crimes.
The number of journalists killed by Israeli forces so far outnumbers the combined total number of journalists killed in the entirety of World War II, Vietnam and the Ukraine war. As of Oct. 4, 2024, before Hamad's death, 175 journalists, including 13 female reporters, had been killed in Gaza.
The majority of journalists (170) were killed in Israeli warplane and drone airstrikes and the remaining four were shot dead by Israeli snipers. Around 72 journalists were killed with their families in attacks on their houses.
Additionally, 53 journalists were killed during indiscriminate bombings throughout the ongoing genocidal campaign; 24 were killed in direct targeted attacks, and 22 were killed while on duty – though it remains unclear whether they were deliberately targeted.
Some 185 journalists have also been injured during the war in various circumstances. There is also the targeting of social media activists by the Israeli Defense Forces, which continue to incite violence against them and threaten to kill them if they do not remain silent.
'Grave personal risk'
The Israeli war falls under a complex international system of justice that has emerged since World War II, much of it aimed at protecting civilians.
Even if states say they are acting in self-defense, international rules regarding armed conflict apply to all participants in a war.
Article 79 of the Geneva Conventions treats journalists working in conflict settings as protected civilians if they don't engage in the fighting.
In March, senior leaders at multiple global media outlets signed a letter urging Israeli authorities to protect journalists in Gaza, saying reporters have been working in unprecedented conditions and faced "grave personal risk."
What the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called Israel's attacks "the most dangerous" war for journalists, has reverberated across the world, striking fear into reporters who are concerned about the setting of deadly precedents – more journalists than ever have died in the course of any year since CPJ began documenting journalist killings in 1992.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the United States' largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, called on media outlets in the U.S. and worldwide to condemn Israel’s targeted assassination of the Palestinian journalist.
In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said: "Israeli forces are assassinating journalists in order to cover up their war crimes and other atrocities and crimes against humanity. Media professionals in the United States and across the world must break their silence and speak out to condemn Israel’s intentional targeting of journalists. The far-right Israeli government cannot be allowed to commit such war crimes without being held accountable.
"Through its silence on such atrocities and its ongoing support for Israel’s genocide, the Biden administration shares the blame for these crimes."
CAIR said it is "running out of words to condemn Israeli atrocities" after 26 people were killed and 93 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza on Oct. 6, 2024.
Experts say by killing journalists, Israel attempts to monopolize the narrative so the world would not see the crimes it commits against the Palestinian people at a time when international journalists are denied access to Gaza to cover this genocidal war. The targeting of journalists intends to isolate the victims and prevent the documentation of Israel’s genocidal acts against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
The willful killing of journalists constitutes a war crime within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to Article 8 of the ICC Rome Statute.