That journalism is a highly dangerous profession, particularly in conflict areas, has once again been established by the latest killing of five Al Jazeera journalists, including the famed reporter Anas al-Sharif, in Gaza. The tragic episode also saw the deaths of Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, as also freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khaldi.
Considering that the Benjamin Netanyahu government has been perpetrating unimaginable brutalities in the Strip, its desire to silence voices exposing such barbarity is comprehensible! All foreign journalists have been banned from entering Gaza to facilitate concealment of these atrocities and, therefore, the presence of the Al Jazeera reporters had been thorns in the flesh of the Israeli military, which explains why a correspondent like Anas al-Sharif, who has a global following, had been targeted as though he was a Hamas terrorist.
The Al Jazeera network has rightly asserted that the heinous murder of its journalists “comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities,” and that “the order to assassinate Anas Al Sharif, one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.”
Israel’s war in Gaza has been one of the deadliest conflicts for journalists in recent times – the head count since it started 22 months ago reportedly being 270! According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, more journalists have been killed in Gaza than in the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan combined.
In comparison, 104 media workers have been killed during the Russia-Ukraine war despite its earlier beginning in February 2014, with 15 dying while reporting. Despite the disparity, this too indicates how dangerous a conflict ecology is for media people to carry out their professional duties.
Even in areas not directly in active conflict, the hazards faced by them are greater than those of any other profession.
For instance, journalists in India have been known to be specifically targeted by mobs, supporters of religious sects, political parties, student groups, lawyers, police and security forces, with perpetrators of killings and attacks including government agencies, security forces, political party members, religious sects, student groups, criminal gangs and local mafias.
The dastardly killing of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh in a residential area in Bengaluru in 2017 is a chilling example of what the consequences of fearless journalism in India can be. The irony, of course, is that journalism is among the lowest paid professions in our country!