On Sunday, an unthinkable crime happened in Gaza. A deliberate strike by the apartheid state of Israel on journalists' tent outside al-Shifa Hospital killed five Al Jazeera staff and two other people.
This is not the first time that the apartheid state of Israel has targeted Al Jazeera and other journalists. Since October 2023, more than 200 journalists have been killed in Palestine.
All deaths have been shocking, but none more so than the killing of Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa, who was targeted by an Israeli air strike while reporting alongside the bureau chief of Al Jazeera in Gaza City, Wael Dahdouh.
Abudaqa was left to bleed to death on the ground, surrounded by debris. The Israeli military had blocked emergency workers from accessing Khan Younis, an area that was and continues to experience unimaginable devastation.
Dahdouh himself has endured unimaginable pain. In 2023, the world watched in horror as he found out about the deaths of his wife, two children (including a 7-year-old daughter) and eight relatives while delivering a live news report. It was one of the most gut-wrenching moments in history.
A man, father, finding out and having to report in real time that his own wife, children and relatives have been bombed to smithereens at a refugee camp that was meant to be safe. But this is what the apartheid state of Israel has done to the people of Palestine – denied them of any place of safety.
It has done it to journalists too. Over the past two years, many journalists have been killed and maimed in Gaza. Some, such as Dahdouh, have been forced to flee a country they call home. The killing of Al Jazeera staff is part of the apartheid state of Israel's attempt to silence the voices that are speaking truth about the horrors happening in Palestine.
It began with the banning of international journalists and has escalated to the targeted assassinations of journalists and influencers who are shining the spotlight on the devastation that is happening to Palestinians – more than 60,000 who have been killed and the many who are starving to death. Those who have reported on the devastation describe Gaza as “hell on earth”.
This is a narrative that the apartheid state of Israel wants to prevent from being heard by a world that is increasingly turning its back on the murderous regime. No honest person can claim to not see the truth about what is happening in Palestine. It is a genocide. It is a genocide whose sole aim is to wipe Palestinian people off the face of the earth using air strikes and starvation.
The apartheid state of Israel has spent years gaslighting the world and presenting itself as a victim while perpetrating the most diabolical violence against Palestinians and other Arab nations. It has consistently violated international law, illegally annexed land from surrounding countries including Palestine and Syria, and murdered and displaced millions.
And now, emboldened by the impunity it has enjoyed owing to its alliances with powerful Western nations, particularly the morally bankrupt US, it is systematically killing journalists. This too is a violation of international law, which protects press freedom.
All of us who value media freedom – from journalists to columnists, activists to governments – have an obligation to stand with journalists working in Palestine.
To say and do nothing, to want to maintain neutrality in the face of such horrific injustice, is to choose the side of the perpetrator. South African journalists who know too well the horrors of apartheid have an even greater responsibility to speak out. Anything less constitutes a betrayal of everything humane.
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