Day of Action to Commemorate Murdered Palestinian Journalists & All Journalists

12/27/23 Day Of Action to Commemorate Murdered Palestinian Journalists & All Journalists
Stop The War On Palestinian Journalists & People
Shutdown All US Military & Economic Aid To Israel
Permanent End To War and Bombing Of Gaza & Targeting of Journalists in Gaza, West Bank & Lebanon
Wednesday December 27, 2023 12:00 pm noon.
San Francisco Chronicle
5th & Mission St.
San Francisco

CWA Palestine Solidarity are supporting a day of action to commemorate the 90 Palestinian journalists who have been murdered by the US supplied Israeli IDF in Gaza. and journalists from Lebanon and in Israel.

On December 27, 2023 at 12 noon CWA Members including journalists as well as media workers and supporters of journalism will gather in San Francisco at the SF Chronicle and other newspapers to commemorate the 100 journalists and other Palestinian journalists like Palestinian American Shireen Abu Akleh who have been targeted and assassinated.

The NewsGuild and IFJ has protested the death of journalists in Gaza as well as the murder of Shireen and we need to let people know that we remember their lives and struggle to get the stories out.

https://newsguild.org/statement-on-the-israel-gaza-war/
https://www.ifj.org/war-in-gaza

The organized attack and murder of journalists is part of the efforts of the Israeli forces to stop the documentation and recording of their war crimes and the genocidal slaughter of over 20,000 people in the ongoing ethnic cleansing supported with money and weapons by Biden and the US government.

In the US as well, journalists such at the LA Times have been retaliated against for signing a statement for a ceasefire.

We also defend their democratic rights and the rights of all journalists here and abroad.
Please Join The Commemoration and Remember our brother and sisters and their families in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

Remember Those Journalists Who Gave Their Lives To Get The Truth Out
CWA Palestine Solidarity

Initial Endorsers
Dennis Bernstien KPFA Flashpoints Member CWA 9415
Ann Garrison, Pacifica CRD
Lisa Milos, CWA UPTE UCSF Member
Steve Zeltzer, Member PMWG & WorkWeek KPOO
Frank Sterling, KPFA Full Circle

PJS president and IFJ vice-president Nasser Abu Baker appeal to help Gaza’s journalists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf-fu5OGIfc&t=1s

Testimony of Rania Khayyat, Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate communications officer. 23/11/2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-FE8YL-7WA&t=10s

CWA Palestine Solidarity
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/newsguild-cwa-members-call-on-our-ec-to-stand-with-palestine

CWA Palestine
cwapalestinesolidarity [at] gmail.com

Gaza media office says 100 journalists killed since Israeli attacks began
Palestinian journalist Muhammed Abu Hweidy latest to be killed in Israeli attack on his home in the east of Gaza City.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/23/gaza-media-office-says-100-journalists-killed-since-israeli-attacks-began

A journalist works outside his vehicle near a makeshift shelter in Rafah in southern Gaza [File: Mohammed Abed/AFP]
Published On 23 Dec 2023
23 Dec 2023
At least 100 journalists have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, according to new figures released by the government media office in Gaza.

Palestinian journalist Muhammed Abu Hweidy was the latest to be killed in an Israeli air raid on his home in the east of Gaza City on Saturday, the media office said.

“The number of journalists killed has risen to 100, men and women, since the start of the brutal war on the Gaza Strip, after the martyrdom of journalist Mohammed Abu Hweidy in an Israeli airstrike in the Shujaiya neighborhood,” the office said on Telegram social media.

Palestinian officials in Gaza say the number could be much higher.

However, according to a tally by the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 69 journalists have been killed in the conflict, including Al Jazeera Arabic’s cameraman Samer Abudaqa.


More than 50 media premises or offices in Gaza have been completely or partially destroyed by Israeli attacks. Hundreds of Palestinian journalists and their families have been forcibly displaced to the south.

The media workers were also forced to abandon their reporting equipment in offices in the north to live and report under difficult conditions amid frequent communication blackouts.


Journalists working in areas of armed conflict are protected under international humanitarian laws, which Israel is accused of violating repeatedly.


Palestinian journalists have said Israel is deliberately targeting them to silence their stories.

Tim Dawson, deputy general secretary at the International Federation of Journalists, told Al Jazeera it is becoming “impossible to ignore such a terribly, terribly high toll” of journalists.

“I don’t think we have seen a death toll of journalists to this concentration in any conflict that I can think of. There were about 1,000 journalists in Gaza at the beginning of this conflict. And while there are slightly different counts of precisely how many have died, if between seven-and-a-half and 10 percent have died, that is an extraordinarily high number,” he said.

Dawson said the journalists in Gaza “only have cameras, microphones and notebooks and continue doing their work despite this absolutely mind-blowing death toll”.

When asked by Al Jazeera if Israel is targeting journalists, he said some Palestinian journalists have told him they “received threatening calls from people” purporting to be from the Israeli military, “warning them that they are going to be targeted or that their families are going to be targeted in the coming days”.

Israel has killed 20 journalists with impunity since 2000 before the recent bombing of Gaza

https://israelpalestinenews.org/one-year-post-shireen-israel-killed-20-journalists-impunity-2000/
CONTACT [at] IFAMERICANSKNEW.ORG MAY 9, 2023 FREEDOM OF PRESS, IMPUNITY, JOURNALIST, SHIREEN ABU AKLEH

Israel has killed 20 journalists with impunity since 2000
Veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh during one of her reports from Jerusalem. - Abu Aqleh, 51, a prominent figure in the channel's Arabic news service was shot dead by Israeli troops early on May 11, 2022 as she covered a raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. (Photo by AL JAZEERA / AFP)
The May 11, 2022, killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is part of a deadly, decades-long pattern. Over 22 years, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented at least 20 journalist killings by members of the Israel Defense Forces.

Despite numerous IDF probes, no one has ever been charged or held responsible for these deaths. Failure to pursue justice for slain reporters undermines freedom of the press.

Deaths are just one part of the story. Many journalists have been injured, and in 2021 the military bombed Gaza buildings that housed offices of more than a dozen local and international media outlets, including The Associated Press…

reposted from the Committee to Protect Journalists, May 9, 2023

Tel Aviv, May 9—One year after Al-Jazeera Arabic correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was fatally shot in the head while reporting on an Israeli military raid in the West Bank, a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists exposes a pattern of lethal force by the Israel Defense Forces alongside inadequate responses that evade accountability.

Since 2001, CPJ has documented at least 20 journalist killings by the IDF. The vast majority—18—were Palestinian. No one has ever been charged or held accountable for these deaths.

“The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and the failure of the army’s investigative process to hold anyone responsible is not a one-off event,” said Robert Mahoney, CPJ’s director of special projects and one of the report’s editors. “It is part of a pattern of response that seems designed to evade responsibility.

Not one member of the IDF has been held accountable in the deaths of 20 journalists from Israeli military fire over the last 22 years.”

CPJ’s report, “Deadly Pattern,” finds that probes into journalist killings at the hands of the IDF follow a routine sequence. Israeli officials discount evidence and witness claims, often appearing to clear soldiers for the killings while inquiries are still in progress.

The IDF’s procedure for examining military killings of civilians such as journalists is a black box, notes the report.

There is no policy document describing the process in detail and the results of any probe are confidential. When probes do take place, the Israeli military often takes months or years to investigate killings and families of the mostly Palestinian journalists have little recourse inside Israel to pursue justice.

The report also finds that Israeli forces repeatedly fail to respect press insignia, sending a chilling message to journalists and media workers throughout the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinian areas under Israeli military control where all 20 killings occurred. Like Abu Akleh, the majority of the 20 journalists killed—at least 13—were clearly identified as members of the media or were inside vehicles with press insignia at the time of their deaths.

For example, in 2008, Reuters camera operator Fadel Shana was wearing blue body armor marked “PRESS” while standing next to a vehicle with the words “TV” and “PRESS” when a tank fired a dart-scattering shell that pierced his chest and legs in multiple places, killing him.

“The degree to which Israel claims to investigate journalist killings depends largely on external pressure,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator.

“There are cursory probes into the deaths of journalists with foreign passports, but that is rarely the case for slain Palestinian reporters. Ultimately, none has seen any semblance of justice.”

Deaths are just one part of the story. Many journalists have been injured, and in 2021 the military bombed Gaza buildings that housed offices of more than a dozen local and international media outlets, including The Associated Press and Al-Jazeera.

CPJ sent multiple requests to the IDF’s press office to interview military prosecutors and officials, but the military refused to meet with CPJ for an on-the-record interview.

The IDF killing of journalists has had a chilling effect on reporters covering their operations, undermining press freedom and heightening safety concerns for Palestinian and foreign journalists.

CPJ’s report includes recommendations to Israel, the United States, and the international community to implement actions to protect journalists, end impunity in the cases of killed journalists, and prevent future killings.

This includes guaranteeing swift, independent, transparent, and effective investigations into the potentially unlawful killings of journalists.

CPJ also calls for Israel to open criminal investigations into the cases of three murdered journalists: Shireen Abu Akleh (2022), Ahmed Abu Hussein (2018), and Yaser Murtaja (2018).


The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide.