Nearly a hundred journalists killed in 2023, three-quarters in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists

This is one of the worst reports drawn up each year by the Committee to Protect Journalists

The toll is appalling: 72 of the 99 journalists and media workers killed worldwide in 2023 are dead “in Israeli attacks on Gaza”, where Israel is at war with Hamas. This is one of the worst reports drawn up each year by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

This association based in New York, financed by private donations and which for 40 years has denounced murders, imprisonments, violence, censorship and threats against journalists, counted on Thursday February 15 in its annual report an increase of 44% over one year in the number of press professionals killed on the planet.

Of the 99 deaths in 2023, “the overwhelming majority (72) were Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza [alors] that, in contrast, outside of this conflict, 22 journalists and media workers were killed in 18 countries”, CPJ is alarmed. THE “Journalists in Gaza are witnesses on the front line”notes CPJ boss Jodie Ginsberg.

“Every journalist killed is an attack on our understanding of the world”

“The suffering of Palestinian journalists in this war will have lasting effects on journalism, not only in the Palestinian territories, but also in the region and beyond. Every journalist killed is an attack on our understanding of the world”denounces the director of the NGO, who also listed the deaths of three Lebanese journalists and two Israelis.

According to CPJ, as of February 7, 85 journalists and media workers have been killed since the start of the war started on October 7, 2023 by the attack of Hamas commandos in southern Israel, leading to the death of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Outside of the conflict in the Middle East, the Philippines and Somalia are “among the deadliest countries for the press“, warns CPJ, which nevertheless notes a very sharp drop in the number of journalists killed in Mexico and Ukraine.