The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) is devastated and outraged by Israel’s targeted killing of Al Jazeera journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa in Gaza City overnight.
Israel deliberately attacked these media workers in a targeted airstrike on a clearly marked tent housing journalists outside al-Shifa Hospital.
These men were not just journalists. They were fathers, sons, friends, and courageous truth-tellers who risked everything to document the horror unfolding around them, and to attempt to open the eyes of the west to Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinian people.
They chose to bear witness to the genocide of their own people, so the world could not look away.
This attack is just the latest incident in a well-established pattern of Israel targeting media workers in a bid to silence Palestinian voices and hide the truth of its genocide.
Since October 2023, Israel’s Occupation Forces have assassinated more than 200 journalists and media workers in Gaza, a brutal assault on the freedom of the press, and a brazen breach of international law.
In fact, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that 2024 was the deadliest year on record for journalists, with 70% of journalists killed by Israel in that 12-month period.
Israel has also sought to control the media narrative about its genocide by preventing foreign journalists from entering the territory, and increasing its hasbara – propaganda – budget by $150 million in December (and a 20-fold increase since before October 2023), mainly targeting the international press, social media and Amercian university campuses.
Killing journalists is an attack on humanity, on truth, and on the courage to speak about both – this should be an abomination to every journalist and media worker in this country, and the Australian Government, which claims to prize freedom of expression. They must all not just speak out, but take tangible action to protest and end this brutal genocide.
We demand the Australian Government:
- Condemns Israel for these journalist killings in the strongest possible terms.
- Demands an urgent, independent international investigation of Israel’s assassination of journalists during the past 22 months.
- Impose country-level sanctions on Israel, and sanction all Israeli individuals and entities responsible for and complicit in its war crimes in Gaza.
- Impose a two-way arms embargo, ending the direct and indirect import and export of weapons and components.
- Suspend all trade agreements with Israel and withdraw support for Israeli normalisation while it continues to commit genocide and apartheid in historic Palestine.
- Support full legal accountability for Israeli officials responsible for war crimes, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.