NEW YORK (AP) — Two main information companies demanded that Israel clarify what occurred throughout a strike on a hospital in Gaza final month that killed 5 journalists, calling for concrete actions and accountability to make sure it doesn’t occur once more.
Reuters and The Related Press — via their prime editors, Alessandra Galloni and Julie Tempo — urged the Israeli authorities to “clarify the deaths of those journalists and to take each step to guard those that proceed to cowl this battle.” Their assertion got here on the one-month anniversary of the strike.
Killed within the strikes had been 5 journalists, together with visible journalist Mariam Dagga, who labored for AP and different information organizations; Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri; and Moaz Abu Taha, a contract journalist whose work had been printed by Reuters. Seventeen others had been killed within the strike.
“We renew our demand for a transparent account from the Israeli authorities and urge the federal government to uphold its obligations to make sure press freedom and safety,” the assertion from the AP and Reuters mentioned. “We stay devastated and outraged by their deaths.”
The journalists died on the Nasser Hospital, which the companies identified is a location protected underneath worldwide legislation and “broadly recognized to be essential for information protection out of Gaza.”
“An incident of this gravity requires a immediate and clear rationalization, adopted by accountability and concrete actions to make sure such assaults are by no means repeated,” the assertion mentioned.
The 2 companies wrote a joint letter instantly after the assault, however that Israel has not responded. The Israeli army mentioned it launched an investigation into the incident.
The Gaza warfare has been lethal for these overlaying it. Practically 200 journalists and media employees have been killed within the area because the assaults by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in keeping with the Committee to Shield Journalists. Comparatively, 18 journalists have been killed up to now in Russia’s warfare in Ukraine, in keeping with the CPJ.
AP reporting on the attack on the hospital raised severe questions on Israel’s rationale for the strikes and the way in which they had been carried out.
The companies’ assertion was issued a day earlier than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to handle the U.N. Basic Meeting throughout its annual leaders’ assembly.
Dagga, 33, was among the many warfare’s victims. She and the 4 different reporters had been killed when Israeli forces struck Nasser Hospital within the Gaza city of Khan Younis, together with 17 different folks.
The Israeli army mentioned it focused what it believed was a Hamas surveillance digital camera within the hospital assault, with out offering proof, and that the journalists weren’t the targets. The prime minister known as the assault a ‘“mishap.’’
