"At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed." Just before 10am in Paris on Thursday, September 26, some 30 members of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) brandished white press vests stained with fake blood on the Parvis des Droits de l'Homme, the Paris esplanade named after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in the adjacent Palais de Chaillot in 1948.

According to RSF's count, 139 journalists have been killed in the conflict, the majority in the Israeli strikes launched after the Hamas attacks of October 7 – which left some 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians. Its American equivalent, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), puts this figure at 127.

Subject to controls by the Israel and Hamas authorities, the gates to Gaza were sealed during Israel's deadly post-October 7 response which, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, has killed more than 41,000 people. This has forced newsrooms to work with their Gazan correspondents remotely.

"It's hard to know who to trust," said Martine Laroche-Joubert. "Not only have over 100 journalists been killed in Gaza, but many have left the territory. Others are also accused of being close to Hamas." For the documentary she made for the French program Enquête Exclusive, broadcast on the M6 channel on September 15, the journalist called on Shrouq Al Aila, the widow of Roshdi Sarraj, a source for many Western media companies, who was killed in October 2023. By combining images shot by the young woman, those of her Palestinian colleagues and those of a French humanitarian, her investigation lifted the veil on the conditions in the tiny, bombed-out territory.

On September 28, the ARTE Reportage program carried out the same exercise with videos sent in by Rami Abou Jamous. Throughout the year, the Gazan journalist has been sharing his daily struggle to protect his little boy from the surrounding horror via a WhatsApp group. "Rami has worked with ARTE for many years, as well as with France 2," said journalist Nathalie Georges, who wrote the report. "Before October 7, he was raising our awareness of a multitude of subjects through this channel. He continued to do so, but with a little of his private life thrown in, so that we could document the facts."

"We" refers to the 160 or so members who make up the Whatsapp group, mainly French and French-speaking journalists. Based on this testimony, France 2 is preparing a story in which viewers can follow Jamous and his son.

You have 69.56% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.