How Israel targets journalists in Gaza: 'The press vest now puts us in danger'
InvestigationIsraeli strikes have killed 108 journalists since the start of the war in Gaza. An investigation by Forbidden Stories and 13 media outlets, including Le Monde, suggests that some of these strikes were deliberate.
The small hill of Tal Al-Zaatar, in the east of the Jabaliya camp, where the now-destroyed Al-Bashir mosque was built, is well known to the few Palestinian journalists present in the area. It is one of the few places in the besieged north of the Gaza Strip that offers sufficient network coverage to send images to the outside world or carry out live broadcasts.
At around 2 pm on January 22, journalists Emad Ghaboun, Mahmoud Sabbah, Mahmoud Shalha and Anas Al-Sharif were themselves looking for Internet signal to send their latest reports when a strike occurred. The place was exposed, almost desert. A reporter for Al Jazeera, Al-Sharif, was wearing a blue press vest when he was slightly wounded on his back. He dashed into the cloud of smoke. The body of a civilian was lying on the blood-soaked rubble, he had been killed instantly while on the phone with his family abroad. Three men were wounded. Prostrate and bloodied. They were crying and calling for help. Their cries of distress and pain were drowned out by the hum of a nearby drone. Ghaboun was the most seriously injured and he was evacuated to Al-Awda hospital in the bucket scoop of a bulldozer, as the destroyed streets of the district, covered with the rubble of fallen buildings, prevented the movement of light vehicles. "I was live with al Jazeera before the targeting," said Al-Sharif. "The missile from the surveillance drone hit in the middle of where a group of us were. It's clear that we were attacked because we were journalists. I was wearing a press vest."
For four months, Forbidden Stories along with a network of 13 investigative media, including Le Monde, have been investigating attacks on Palestinian journalists in Gaza that have been happening since the deadly Hamas raid on Israel on October 7, 2023. According to preliminary estimates by the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 108 journalists have been killed among 37,000 Palestinian victims.
For over four months, the Forbidden Stories collective coordinated an investigation involving 50 journalists from 13 international media outlets, including Le Monde, to document how Israeli forces have been deliberately targeting journalists since the start of their offensive in Gaza. Involving over 120 witnesses, ballistic expertise, satellite images and videos, the Gaza Project consortium has analyzed more than 100 cases of journalists and media staff killed in bombardments or drone strikes, in their homes, on the street or while reporting. Although Israel has formally denied intentionally targeting reporters, the investigation counted at least 14 journalists and media workers killed or injured in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and southern Lebanon while wearing a clearly identifiable blue "PRESS" vest.
Our investigation reveals that drone strikes deliberately targeted at least 18 Gazan journalists: Six were killed and 12 were injured. The experts interviewed by the media participating in this collaborative investigation agree that the drones used by the Israeli army have the technological capacity to identify their targets with extreme precision, to perform surgical strikes and to cancel a strike in real time if civilians are located close to the target. So why have so many journalists – some of them identifiable as such – been the victims of drone strikes?
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