January 12, 2025 – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) – The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continue to target and kill journalists as part of Israel’s wide-scale military aggression on the Gaza Strip ongoing for 15 months now.
By this, Israel intends to kill the eyewitnesses to the crime of genocide it is committing against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip under the world’s watch.
It is fully clear and decided to exterminate all journalists and reporters who are powerfully covering and live-streaming the crimes committed on the ground.
Journalists are pursued while in field or even in their homes with their beloved ones, clearly sending them an intimidating message to deter them from exposing the truth to the whole world.
The ongoing targeting and killing of journalists, along with the significant surge in the number of journalists killed, undoubtedly prove that the killings are deliberate and intentional, being an integral part of the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
In continuation of their crimes, the IOF killed yesterday a photojournalist while he was covering the incidents in Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip.
According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) field documentation, at around 17:00 on Friday, 10 January 2025, an Israeli sniper, topping a residential building in al-Jadeed camp in al-Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, shot dead Saed Sabri ‘Ali Abu Nabhan (26), a photojournalist at Al-Ghad TV and Anadolu Agency and married with children.
The bullet fired by the Israeli sniper penetrated Abu Nabhan’s back and exited his chest, noting that he was carrying his camera and documenting the rescue of several injured people by medical crews from the same camp.
At approximately 16:04, medical crews alongside many journalists headed to the al-Jadeed camp after responding to an appeal from residents reporting casualties trapped under the rubble following IOF’s incursion and tank shelling on the camp that morning.
After the military vehicles withdrew, medical crews began rescuing the injured while journalists were covering the events.
At that moment, Israeli tanks fired shells at a group of people, including the medical crews and journalists, while Israeli snipers stationed on the rooftops of high residential buildings opened fire at them.
As a result, many were injured, including journalist Saed Abu Nabhan.
A footage went viral on social media showing the moment Abu Nabhan was shot with a live bullet in his back while carrying his camera and fleeing with other people, including young men carrying a dead body, as gunfire could be heard.
Abu Nabhan lost consciousness and fell, while someone tried to carry him but was unable to, leaving Abu Nabhan to bleed to death.
A paramedic from the Public Service Ambulance crew was at the scene to evacuate the wounded in the camp reported: “Artillery shells were fired, and quad-copters hovered above the medical crews and journalists, along with an Israeli sniper stationed on top of a high residential building. The sniper then fired a live bullet, hitting journalist Abu Nabhan who fell on the ground…”
Khamis Sa’eed al-Refi (23), a freelance journalist for Reuters and Al Jazeera, confirmed that an Israeli sniper, who was on top of a high residential building inside the camp, opened fire at Abu Nabhan, injuring him with a live bullet that penetrated his back and exited his chest.
He then fell on the ground. “After several attempts to pull him, we managed to and put him in an ambulance that transported him to al-‘Awda Hospital in Nuseirat refugee camp.”
Unfortunately, Abu Nabhan succumbed to his injury before reaching the hospital, as the live bullet hit his heart.
With the killing of journalist Abu Nabhan, the number of journalists killed by IOF since 07 October 2024, the onset of the Israeli genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip, has risen to 204, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.
This war has taken a record toll since the recording of journalist fatalities started in 1992. Among those killed were 20 female journalists.
Meanwhile, the majority of journalists (191) were killed in Israeli warplane and drone airstrikes, and the remaining five were shot dead by Israeli snipers, with Abu Nabhan being the latest.
Most journalists were killed alongside their families in targeted attacks on their homes.
Israel, by targeting journalists, aims to monopolize the narrative and orchestrate a media blackout to prevent the world from seeing the atrocities committed against the Palestinian people at a time Israel is denying international journalists access to Gaza to cover the genocide.
All of this is part of a full-blown genocidal campaign and other international crimes, by which Israeli is attempting to entrench a second Nakba against 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for over a year.
PCHR believes that Israel continues to pursue a systematic policy to eradicate journalism in the Gaza Strip marked by the direct targeting and blatant disregard for press insignia.
Despite journalists wearing their distinctive uniforms and being in an area well known to IOF, they were deliberately targeted and killed.
PCHR asserts that 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.
Thus, PCHR calls on the international community to openly condemn the targeting of journalists, to exert pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to immediately stop these attacks, and to urgently provide international protection for civilians, including journalists, in the Gaza Strip.
PCHR reiterates that journalists enjoy special protection under international humanitarian law, akin to civilians.
According to Article 79 of Protocol Additional I to the Geneva Conventions, which codifies a rule of customary international law, “journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in zones of armed conflict are civilians within the meaning of Article 50 (1).”
As such, they enjoy the full scope of protection granted to civilians under international human rights law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Israel has ratified but refuses to apply to the occupied territory, just as it denies the applicability of international humanitarian law.
PCHR emphasizes that the willful killing of journalists constitutes a war crime that falls under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to Article 8 of the ICC Rome Statute.
Such an act also constitutes arbitrary deprivation of life under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the perpetrators must be held accountable.
The targeting of journalists is also a violation of the right to freedom of press and freedom of expression as guaranteed under international human rights law, particularly Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 19 of the ICCPR.
In light of these violations, PCHR calls on the international community to pressure the occupying power to immediately stop the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip and targeting journalists and to take immediate action to provide international protection for civilians, including journalists, in the Gaza Strip.
PCHR also urges the international community to exert pressure on Israel to stop its crimes, comply with the rules of international law, and provide protection for civilians.
PCHR also calls upon the international journalists’ organizations, including the International Federation of Journalists, to act urgently to push towards holding Israel accountable for the killing and targeting of journalists in Palestine, particularly in the Gaza Strip.
