A United Nations expert has accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza to conceal evidence of genocide, warning that the war has become the deadliest conflict ever for media workers.
“The way in which journalists are being killed, silenced … is the cover-up of genocide,” Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, told reporters in Geneva on Monday.
According to the latest UN figures, at least 252 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Khan stressed that the toll is unprecedented, noting that more journalists have died in Gaza than in both World Wars, the Vietnam War, the Yugoslav conflicts, and the war in Afghanistan combined.
By contrast, only 14 journalists have been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and just “dozens” were killed over two decades in Afghanistan, she said.
Khan argued that many of the journalists killed in Gaza were “deliberately picked out and killed because of the work they are doing to expose atrocities, crimes, [and] genocide on the ground.”
She also condemned Israeli “smear campaigns” that branded slain journalists as “terrorist supporters or terrorists themselves” in an effort to “delegitimise and discredit” them.
“It is not just killing journalists,” she said. “A very clear attempt is being made here to kill the story.”
The expert further criticized Israel for blocking international reporters from entering Gaza, calling it “extremely unusual” and warning that it sets a “terrible precedent” for press freedom.
“States must stop Israel before all journalists in Gaza are silenced,” Khan urged.