The non-governmental organization (NGO) Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced before the International Criminal Court (ICC) the appearance of “war crimes committed against journalists in Palestine and Israel”, according to a statement released today.
“RSF submitted a complaint for war crimes to the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court on October 31, 2023,” reads the organization’s statement, cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The complaint details the cases of “nine journalists murdered since October 7 [data do ataque do Hamas a Israel]and two injured in the exercise of their duties”.
According to RSF, the complaint refers to “eight Palestinian journalists killed in Israel’s bombing of civilian areas of Gaza, and an Israeli journalist killed on October 7 while covering the attack on his ‘kibbutz’ by Hamas.”
The text also mentions “the intentional destruction, total or partial, of the workplaces of more than 50 media outlets in Gaza.”
“The breadth, severity and recurrence of international crimes against journalists, particularly in Gaza, demand a priority investigation by the ICC prosecutor. We have been calling for it since 2018. The ongoing tragic events demonstrate the extreme urgency of its mobilization” , highlighted Christophe Deloire, secretary general of RSF.
The ICC, based in The Hague (Netherlands), has no legal obligation to accept the complaint, since only States, the UN Security Council and the ICC prosecutor himself (on his own initiative) can appeal to the court.
According to RSF data, 34 journalists have died since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, at least twelve of them in the exercise of their professional activity (ten in Gaza, one in Israel and one in Lebanon).
As for Lebanon, which is not part of the ICC, Reporters Without Borders “is studying all possibilities of addressing the cases with other competent jurisdictions,” according to the statement.
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Monday that at least 31 journalists have been killed since October 7, including 26 Palestinians, four Israelis and one Lebanese.
CPJ also counted eight injured and nine missing or detained, in what is the deadliest report from journalists covering the conflict in the Middle East since the committee’s creation in 1992.
The Islamist group Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7 with the launch of thousands of rockets and the incursion of armed militiamen, taking two hundred hostages.
In response, Israel declared war on Hamas, a movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is classified as terrorist by the European Union and the United States, bombing several of the group’s infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and imposing a siege on the territory by cutting off the supply of water, fuel and electricity.
The conflict has already caused thousands of deaths and injuries, between soldiers and civilians, in both territories.
Source: TSF
