The UN said it was “very concerned” Monday by the high toll of Palestinian journalists killed in the Gaza Strip, following the death of two reporters on Sunday, but was unable to say whether they were deliberately targeted. by Israeli forces. »
“The killings of all journalists,” including Hamza Waël Dahdouh and Moustafa Thuraya in a strike attributed to the Israeli army, “must be thoroughly and independently investigated to ensure strict compliance with international law and violations must be prosecuted,” stressed the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a message on the social network X.
“Very concerned by the high toll of media professionals killed in Gaza,” he wrote again.
At least 79 journalists and media professionals, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Hamza Waël Dahdouh, journalist for the Al Jazeera channel, and his colleague Moustafa Thuraya, a freelance videographer who worked with the Qatari channel and collaborated in particular with the AFP, were killed while they were driving in a car, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, to “carry out their work”, according to Al Jazeera.
The channel assured that they had been killed by an Israeli strike, and accused the army of “targeting” Palestinian journalists.
A third journalist who was traveling with them, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.
Asked about the accusation, Florencia Soto Nino, deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General in New York, said: “This is something we cannot verify at the moment. But what we do know is that many of them have died and we have repeatedly called for their profession to be respected so that they can practice it freely and safely.”
“We reiterate that journalists, like all other civilians, must be protected and must not be targeted because of the work they do,” she stressed.
The Israeli army assured AFP that it had “hit a terrorist who was piloting a flying device representing a threat to the troops”, adding that it was “aware of information according to which, during the strike, two other suspects who were in the same vehicle had also been hit.”
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, after its unprecedented attack on its territory on October 7, which left around 1,140 dead, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count at from the Israeli record.
The continuous Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip have left more than 23,000 dead, mostly civilians, according to the latest report from Hamas, classified as a “terrorist group” by the United States and the European Union.