Gaza: UNESCO Condemns ‘Unacceptable' Killing Of Journalists
'I condemn the killing of journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammed Al-Khaldi and call for a thorough and transparent investigation,' UNESCO's Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Five of the six worked for the influential Qatari-based media organization, Al Jazeera: Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh were on air correspondents, while Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa worked as camera operators. Mohammed Al-Khaldi was a freelance photojournalist.
They were reportedly killed by an Israeli attack on a tent used by media personnel at the entrance of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Blatant, premeditated attack
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) alleged that 28-year-old correspondent Anas al-Sharif was a serving Hamas operative. Al Jazeera strongly denies this, describing the attack as an 'assassination' and 'yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.'
The UN Human Rights Council-appointed independent expert on freedom of expression issued a statement on 31 July denouncing an Israeli military spokesperson's 'repeated threats' and 'unfounded accusations' against Mr. Anas Al-Sharif, flagging it as 'a blatant attempt to endanger his life and silence his reporting' in Gaza.
Condemning the attack in the strongest possible terms on Tuesday, two special rapporteurs described the killings as 'an attempt to silence reporting on the ongoing genocide and starvation campaign' in Gaza.
'It is outrageous that the Israeli army dares to first launch a campaign to smear Anas Al-Sharif as Hamas in order to discredit his reporting and then kill him and his colleagues for speaking the truth to the world,' the experts said, demanding an immediate investigation into the killings and full access to international media, which Israel currently bars from entering Gaza.
Special Rapporteurs and other independent experts are appointed by and report regularly to the Human Rights Council. They work in their individual capacity, are not UN staff and receive no payment for their work.
Violation of international law
UNESCO chief Ms. Azoulay stressed that targeting journalists reporting on conflicts is unacceptable and violates international law.
She also reiterated her call to respect UN Security Council Resolution 2222, which was unanimously adopted in 2015 to protect journalists, media professionals and associated personnel in conflict situations.
Since October 2023, UNESCO has reported at least 62 journalists and media workers killed in the line of duty in Palestine, excluding deaths in circumstances unrelated to their work, while OHCHR reports that at least 242 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the same time frame.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
8 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Israeli far-right minister backs contentious West Bank settlement plan
Israel's finance minister has backed plans to build 3400 homes in a particularly contentious area of the occupied West Bank, calling for the territory's annexation in response to several countries' plans to recognise a Palestinian state. In response, the United Nations chief warned that building Israeli homes in the area
NZ Herald
10 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Toi-Ohomai South Waikato closure: Taskforce to explore education solutions
'We plan to hold the first meeting in the next couple of weeks,' the spokesperson said. Petley said the group would work 'with urgency'. 'We are establishing this group to gather and analyse data which will help inform Toi-Ohomai on the programmes that will work in our district, and which we know there is demand for from employers,' Petley said. 'The jobs are there, we have companies that want to grow here, and as a council, we are actively pushing to encourage more economic growth in the district, so we need to make sure our people are equipped to service that in the future.' Upston called on Project Phoenix to investigate education requirements within the district and how local schools are feeding into courses currently offered at the Tokoroa campus. Taupo MP Louise Upston. 'Over the next three months, the taskforce will research the skills needed for the region's workforce, and how those can best be provided by local trainers,' she said. Tertiary education funding Following the Government's announcement in July, that Te Pūkenga will be disestablished to return 10 polytechnics to regional governance, the Cabinet established a special fund. The $20 million transition fund, distributed by the Tertiary Education Commission, is meant to support polytechs to continue delivering strategically important training during the transition from Te Pūkenga. Upston said Toi-Ohomai Tokoroa had applied for a portion of that funding. The Pūkenga Rau building in Tokoroa. 'I will be advocating on its behalf to help it regain independence and financial viability to deliver courses which prepare students for careers in the region.' Toi-Ohomai executive director Kieran Hewitson said they welcomed the opportunity to apply for funding. 'The... fund... presents a potential pathway forward. 'If successful, [the funding] will allow us more time to work with the Tokoroa community to develop a viable plan.' Toi-Ohomai executive director Kieran Hewitson. Photo / Supplied A spokesperson for the Tertiary Education Commission said the commission was in the process of engaging with the polytechs that applied for funding to make the 'allocation decisions'. 'Polytechs will be notified in the coming month.' Staff cuts and campus closures The Bay of Plenty and Waikato-based Toi-Ohomai Institute of Technology proposed last month to disestablish the jobs of 166.7 fulltime equivalent staff, with a net loss of 63.9 roles after proposed new roles are filled. Toi-Ohomai said that falling student numbers along with reduced revenue and increasing costs made the campus unviable in Tokoroa. 'Where we can work with employers, hapū and iwi and other groups to deliver programmes in Tokoroa, we will,' Hewitson said at the time. In a statement to the Waikato Herald this week, she said the final decision was still outstanding. 'While we are currently undergoing a consultation process that proposes a shift away from campus-based delivery in Tokoroa from 2026, no final decision has been made.' The nearest campuses to Tokoroa are at least an hour's drive away in Rotorua, Tauranga or Hamilton. Danielle Zollickhofer is the Waikato news director and a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. She joined NZME in 2021 and is based in Hamilton.
NZ Herald
11 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Only one option on recognising Palestinian state
Recognising a supposed state which is split in two, with one bit run by the corrupt Fatah movement and the other by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hamas, surely meets those tests. Yet Peters going so public on the matter on Monday was still extraordinary. In a formal media statement, the Foreign Minister publicly acknowledged the Cabinet is divided over whether to recognise Palestine, with 'a broad range of strongly held views within our Government, Parliament and indeed New Zealand society'. 'This is not a straightforward, clear-cut issue,' Peters said, in what risks reading as a subtle dig at Luxon. Peters promised to approach the matter 'calmly, cautiously and judiciously' and to 'canvass this broad range of views before taking a proposal to Cabinet' which he would then present in New York late next month, when representing New Zealand at the UN's annual leaders' week. While Peters would be right to worry about US President Donald Trump's reaction to New Zealand recognising Palestine in an age of arbitrary tariffs, it is almost unthinkable that Cabinet would decide against it. Recognition of a Palestinian state is common ground between the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, representing over two-thirds of MPs in Parliament, and of at least two of the smaller parties. It is also now the position of our only military ally and biggest economic partner, Australia, and the conditional stance of two other close Five Eyes friends, the UK and Canada. Strong objections can be made that the divided Palestinian Authority currently fails to meet the usual tests of statehood, including control of territory and effective government. Moreover, recognising Palestine as a state risks being seen not just as endorsing the corrupt West Bank regime of Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas – now into the 20th year of his first four-year term – but the evil Hamas organisation which has run Gaza for nearly as long. On the other hand, that may be too purist. Recognising Palestinian statehood is not about supporting Abbas or Hamas but a way of expressing opposition, not to Israel itself, but to its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. It isn't clear if Luxon meant his attack on Netanyahu this week – that he has 'gone way too far' and 'lost the plot' – to be so unequivocal that it attracted global media attention and was flattered by a tough response from Israel. 'When you don't really need an army because your most deadly enemy is a possum or a cat,' its deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel said tartly but not inaccurately, 'you wouldn't comprehend the challenges that come with facing Hamas – a jihadist death cult – only a few kilometres away from your country, that rape, execute, burn alive and starve your people.' Nevertheless, Luxon almost certainly spoke for a majority of the Cabinet, Parliament and New Zealanders. The only inaccurate part about his critique of Netanyahu is that he described his going too far and losing the plot as a recent development. In fact, Netanyahu – who has been on trial for corruption and fraud in the Jerusalem District Court since 2020 – has tragically been coming to mirror his enemies for much longer. Israel and the world would be better off had he retired from politics after he implemented his extraordinarily successful economic reforms 20 years ago. He has managed even to alienate Germany, whose leaders have described one of the purposes of the very existence of their country since 1949 as being to assure the security of Israel. Even it has felt forced to suspend all military exports to Israel that could be used in Gaza. With Luxon having made his attitude so clear – not just to New Zealanders but to the international community – Cabinet cannot choose other than to endorse his support for New Zealand recognising Palestinian statehood. No matter how frustrating it can sometimes be for foreign ministers, foreign policy is ultimately the prerogative of the head of government. If, somehow, Luxon's views were not to prevail on such a matter, he would be rendered a complete lame duck around his own Cabinet table. Moreover, rightly or wrongly, actively deciding not to recognise Palestine in the current international environment would no longer be interpreted as a refusal to do anything that would legitimise Hamas but as an active endorsement of Netanyahu and some of the extremist parties that keep him in office and so potentially out of jail. New Zealand foreign and trade policy is strongest and most successful when it reflects a consensus between National and Labour. For all their faults, they are ultimately the grown-ups in the room. The antics of Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick or the more reflexively pro-Israel views of some within the Act Party should not influence the forthcoming decision. The Cabinet Manual demands that matters such as this be considered at that level, and not just resolved in a meeting between the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and Foreign Minister. So be it. Cabinet government is a better system than taking decisions on a Prime Minister's couch. Still, with New Zealand's unfolding economic crisis needing to be tackled without distraction, it would be better if the decision could be taken more quickly than late September. And it should be the Prime Minister who makes the announcement in New Zealand and explains why the decision was made, not the Foreign Minister at the UN in New York. As leader of the country, not just a mere first among equals around the Cabinet table, Luxon needs to assert himself.
