hawkplay Israel Keeps Attacking Journalists. When Will the U.S. Intervene?

Hunted.hawkplay

That is how Hossam Shabat recently described his life as a journalist in northern Gaza.

Just days earlier, the Israeli military accused him and five other Al Jazeera journalists of being fighters in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The accusations, which the network has said are “baseless” and which Mr. Shabat and the others have denied, effectively put targets on these journalists and come amid a horrific recent Israeli offensive in northern Gaza. In the past month, this small group of journalists has provided important documentation of what the United Nations human rights chief has said are possible “crimes against humanity.”

At least 129 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza started last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists; the Gaza media office puts that number much higher, at 188. This has been the deadliest year for journalists since the C.P.J. began recording the numbers in 1992. The group has said that in the first 10 weeks of the war, more journalists were killed than had been killed in any country over an entire year.

The C.P.J. has also determined that five journalists who were killed, including one in Lebanon, were “directly targeted” by Israeli forces, and the organization is investigating more than 20 others. (The Israel Defense Forces has repeatedly denied targeting journalists.)

The record number of journalists killed has been met with little response from Israel’s most important ally, the United States. The Biden administration has powerful tools to help pursue accountability for these killings. It could ensure independent investigations, enforce the Leahy law, which prohibits the United States from assisting foreign military units suspected of having committed human rights abuses, or even impose sanctions, which it did for far less just a few months ago in response to a Georgian law that could limit press freedoms.

Decades of what rights groups have called a pattern of Israeli impunity in the killings of journalists, combined with its accusations of reporters of being fighters, compromises the world’s ability to know what’s happening in Gaza. And Washington’s anemic response tells the Israeli military there will be no consequences.

Two weeks before Israeli authorities accused the six journalists of having ties to militant groups in Gaza, Mr. Shabat and one of the other journalists, Anas al-Sharif, survived what they said was a harrowing attack by Israeli forces. One of their colleagues, a cameraman named Fadi al-Wahidi, was shot in the neck as the group tried to flee a quadcopter that chased and then fired on them, according to Mr. al-Sharif. After Mr. al-Wahidi was shot, his colleagues began to film. In the footage, he can be seen lying facedown on a sidewalk. His navy blue press jacket is stark against his white shirt, starker still for how little protection it offered him.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Among national universities, Princeton was ranked No. 1 again, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. Stanford, which tied for third last year, fell to No. 4. U.S. News again judged Williams College the best among national liberal arts colleges. Spelman College was declared the country’s top historically Black institution.

Calls for school crackdowns have mounted with reports of cyberbullying among adolescents and studies indicating that smartphones, which offer round-the-clock distraction and social media access, have hindered academic instruction and the mental health of children.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.hawkplay