On World Press Freedom Day, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) condemns a pattern of ostensibly intentional attacks against journalists and other media workers who have been targeted by Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks. The human rights organization calls on all competent authorities to investigate such attacks effectively, as potential war crimes, with a view to holding those responsible to account.
“Israeli defence forces appear to be intentionally and unlawfully attacking journalists and other media workers to stop them from exposing their crimes,” said Said Benarbia, the ICJ MENA Programme Director. “Despite the Israeli authorities’ repeated denials, there is an ostensible pattern of intentional targeting of journalists and other media workers with the aim of silencing them.”
As of 3 May 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded the death of 97 journalists and media workers: 92 Palestinians, three Lebanese and two Israelis, since the recent renewal of hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Israel and the Gaza Strip following the attacks on 7 October 2023, and the opening of a second front on the southern Lebanese border.
A pattern of deliberate and unlawful targeting of journalists in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon cloaked in denials and impunity
According to Reporters without Borders (RSF), since 7 October 2023, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have engaged in the deliberate, total or partial, destruction of the premises of more than 50 media outlets in the Gaza Strip and, as of 7 February 2024, had killed at least 20 journalists in the course of their journalistic work or in connection with it. RSF has identified at least seven journalists who may have been deliberately targeted as journalists by the IDF in the Gaza Strip. RSF has further denounced calls by Israeli politicians for journalists in Gaza to be killed.
According to a UNIFIL investigation, on 13 October 2023, an Israeli tank fired two consecutive 120 mm rounds at a group of clearly identifiable journalists gathered in a spot near Alma-al Chaab in southern Lebanon, killing Issam Abdallah, a Reuters’ journalist, and injuring six of his colleagues, some of them quite severely. Consistent with the findings of the UNIFIL’s investigation into the attack, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also concluded that the strikes were deliberate and must be investigated as a war crime.
A month later, on 13 November 2023, again near Alma-al Chaab, two Israeli strikes targeted, in what clearly appeared to be a deliberate move, a group of journalists who were in an open area and clearly identified as press. One Al-Jazeera cameraman was injured as a result.
On 21 November, journalist Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari, who worked for the TV station Al Mayadeen, as well as a man from a border village who served as their guide, were killed in an Israeli strike. They were on duty with clear press markings when they were hit.
“Israel is failing to investigate the killing of journalists by the IDF in a manner that complies with international law,” said Said Benarbia. “In light of the resulting systematic impunity for what appear to be serious crimes under international law, the International Criminal Court or third States exercising universal jurisdiction must step in.”
These recent killings by the IDF form part of an apparent continuous pattern of deliberate and unlawful targeting of journalists and other media workers, which have been denounced as war crimes, whether in the Gaza strip or the West Bank, and to which the Israeli authorities have responded with denials and a cloak of impunity.
A report published by the Committee to Protect Journalists published in 2023 concluded that there has been a lack of “accountability for journalists killed by the Israeli military in the last two decades”.
Applicable international law and accountability
As long as journalists do not take any direct part in the hostilities, deliberate attacks against them in situations of armed conflict violate both international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
Under international humanitarian law, as long as they do not take any direct part in the hostilities, journalists are entitled to the same protection granted to civilians. UN Security Council Resolution 2222 (2015) on the protection of journalists, media professionals and associated personnel in armed conflicts reaffirms States’ obligation to protect journalists and emphasizes their obligation to take steps to ensure accountability for crimes committed against journalists and media professionals.
Accordingly, the willful killing of journalists, as protected persons, or willfully causing serious injury, in the context of an international armed conflict constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and war crimes under customary international law as well as under article 8(2)(a) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Intentionally directing attacks against journalists who are not taking direct part in hostilities or against media outlets that are not military objectives also amount to a war crime under customary international law and article 8(2)(b) of the Rome Statute.
International human rights law prohibits any arbitrary deprivation of life. The Human Rights Committee has held that practices inconsistent with international humanitarian law, such as the targeting of civilians, violate the right to life under guaranteed by article 6 of the Covenant. According to the UN Human Rights Committee, the right to life encompasses the duty of States to investigate and, when evidence so warrants, prosecute incidents of potential unlawful deprivation of life. Investigations into such incidents should be conducted in an “impartial, prompt, thorough, effective, credible and transparent” manner.
As Palestine is a State Party to the Rome Statute, the ICC has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute apparent war crimes, including the willful killing of, or intentional attacks against journalists, committed inside the Gaza Strip by the IDF – or committed in Israel by Palestinian armed groups.
Conversely, neither Lebanon nor Israel is a party to the Rome Statute, and the ICC currently has no jurisdiction in relation to war crimes reportedly committed by the IDF in Lebanon.
However, all High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions are under the obligation to prosecute or extradite those alleged to have committed or to have ordered to be committed grave breaches of the Conventions consistent with the principle of universal jurisdiction.
In light of the above, the ICJ urges the Israeli authorities to refrain from further targeting journalists and media infrastructure deliberately and to take measures to ensure their protection in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the OPT as well as in Lebanon. Israel should also conduct effective and transparent investigations into all apparent war crimes, including those mentioned above, and hold those responsible to account.
The ICJ also calls on the ICC prosecutor to conduct an effective investigation of Rome Statute crimes committed against journalists and other media workers in the Gaza Strip and in Israel.
The ICJ further calls on Lebanon to become a State Party to the Rome Statute to allow for independent investigations into Rome Statute crimes committed on its territory. In this regard, the ICJ welcomes the Lebanese Council of Ministers’ decision on 26 April to accept the exercise of the ICC’s jurisdiction with respect to crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction occurring on Lebanese territory since 7 October 2023, and urges the Lebanese authorities to go through with this procedure and lodge a declaration to this effect with the ICC Registrar, pursuant to article 12(3) of the Rome Statute.