Assassination threat? Israel tags six Palestinian journalists as ‘fighters’

On October 23, Israel’s official account on X posted photos of six Palestinian journalists, accusing them of being Hamas fighters who were “spearheading the propaganda for Hamas at Al Jazeera.”

Just two days after the list was published, on October 25, Israeli airstrikes killed three journalists in Lebanon, targeting a compound known to be housing reporters without prior warning in the country’s south-east.

Some of the named Palestinian journalists said that the list was akin to drawing a bull’s eye on their backs by the Israeli military, which has been targeting members of the press indiscriminately since October 7, 2023.

Israel has accused Anas al-Sharif, Hossam Shabat, Ismael Abu Omar and Talal Arrouki of ties with Hamas, as well as Ashraf Saraj and Alaa Salameh of having links with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Israel claimed all six held roles like sniper, infantry soldier, and training coordinator, in addition to spreading “propaganda”.

One of the journalists, Hossam Shabat, spoke out against the allegations on X: “This blatant and belligerent attempt to transform us, the last witnesses in the north, into killable targets is an assassination threat and (an) obvious attempt to preemptively justify our murder,” he said.

“This public threat was made without any evidence and is part of a systematic propaganda campaign to justify the unjustifiable as Israel continues to target civilians in Gaza, including doctors, aid workers, children and us journalists.”

Al Jazeera denounced the accusations, calling them “fabricated” and “part of a wider pattern of hostility” towards the network.

Another journalist, Anas al-Sharif also reacted to the accusations against him and the five other journalists in a post on X. “Silence or death: This is what the IOF wants from me and from the journalists of Gaza,” he wrote.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement condemning Israel’s target list, with CPJ Director Jodie Ginsberg warning that this is “an attempt to excuse any future attacks on these journalists”.

“There is a pattern of Israel making these kinds of allegations, providing evidence that is, frankly, not credible or, in some cases, no evidence at all,” Ginsberg said in an interview with Democracy Now.

Earlier in July, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed two Al Jazeera journalists, including Ismail Al Ghoul.

Israel later released a document alleging that Al Ghoul was an engineer in a Hamas brigade, a claim CPJ called “contradictory” since it suggested he held a Hamas rank in 2007, when he was only ten years old.

“So, the document was not, in our view, credible,” Ginsberg commented, adding that Israel has a history of targeting Palestinian journalists with unverified claims.

On October 25, just two days after Israel’s accusations, Shabat reported the abduction of 17-year-old journalist Aboud Battah by Israeli forces near Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital.

In a post on X, Ramy Abdu, head of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, stated that the Israeli military tortured Battah before taking him to an unknown location, raising “serious concerns for his life”.

Since October 2023, Israel has killed at least 128 journalists in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“And in many cases, we believe those journalists to have been deliberately targeted for being journalists,” CPJ’s Ginsberg said.