The government media office in the Gaza Strip stated that another Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the besieged coastal enclave, bringing the death toll to 192 since the beginning of the brutal Israeli war in October last year.
Maysara Ahmed Salah, who worked for the local Quds News Network, succumbed to his gunshot wounds on Sunday after being shot by Israeli forces in northern Gaza.
The Gaza media office appealed to the international community and press organizations “to deter the (Israeli) occupation and prosecute it in international courts for its ongoing crimes” against Palestinian journalists.
Separately, the Palestinian Journalists Forum in a statement mourned Salah’s death, stating that he “took the path of freedom, paved with blood and sacrifices, in defense of the oppressed Palestinian nation and sought to show their sufferings to the world.”
The forum also condemned the international community’s silence, and its inaction to protect Palestinian journalists and enable them to perform their professional duties in accordance with the international law and humanitarian conventions.
Journalists working within the Palestinian territory encounter heightened risks while covering the conflict, particularly in light of Israeli ground offensives and airstrikes, as well as challenges such as disrupted communications, shortages of supplies, and power outages.
Backed by the United States and its Western allies, Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the Israeli regime in response to its decades-long campaign of oppression against Palestinians.
The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed 44,429 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 105,250 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.
