UN experts: “Israel” deliberately kills journalists in Gaza to silence them

GAZA, Feb. 01 (YPA) – United Nations human rights experts expressed in a statement on Thursday their concern about the high number of journalists killed in the Gaza war, denouncing “the deliberate Israeli strategy to silence press coverage.”

The five independent experts commissioned by the Human Rights Council said in the statement that “rarely have journalists paid such a high price simply for doing their work, as journalists in Gaza are doing now.”

They added: “We are concerned about the very large numbers of journalists and media workers who have been killed, attacked, injured, or arrested in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially in Gaza, in recent months.”

The experts noted that they had received disturbing reports that, although the journalists were clearly identifiable wearing press-branded vests and helmets or traveling in clearly marked press vehicles, they were still being attacked.

“This seems to indicate that the killings, injuries, and arrests are a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical press coverage,” the UN experts said. They stressed that “targeted attacks and the killing of journalists are war crimes.”

YPA