Genocide without evidence: Why Israel eliminates Gaza’s storytellers

On August 10, the Zionist regime deliberately martyred five journalists in Gaza City: Anas al-Sharif, Muhammad Qreiqa, Ibrahim Zaher, Muhammad Noufal, and Mu’min Aluyeh. They were working in a tent outside al-Shifa Hospital when the regime targeted them in a deliberate strike.

The Israeli army admitted to these killings but falsely claimed that al-Sharif was a Hamas commander.

For 22 months, the international community has witnessed Israel’s systematic killing of journalists, labeling it “acceptable casualties” in a so-called just war.

So far, around 300 media workers have been martyred in the war on Gaza, making it the deadliest war for journalists ever recorded.

Yet the world’s response has been limited to writing strongly worded letters—while sending even more weapons.

Mondoweiss wrote: Where are the sanctions that were imposed after the start of the Ukraine war? Where are the war crimes tribunals that prosecuted Rwanda’s military commanders? Where is the global media solidarity that should transcend borders and politics? Apparently, this solidarity only exists when the victims are not Palestinian.

Under Article 79 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, journalists are explicitly protected as civilians in areas of armed conflict. Deliberately directing attacks against civilians, including journalists, is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

The law is clear; the crime is blatant. Yet the Zionist regime, by fabricating false accusations against journalists, has turned every Palestinian journalist into a “legitimate” target. This pattern repeats because it has been allowed to become routine.

The Zionist regime bans international journalists from entering Gaza, leaving only Palestinian voices to document the genocide—then systematically silences those voices, while the world debates whether such actions can be justified instead of demanding accountability.

Western media institutions bear bloody responsibility for this massacre. For decades, they have served as the public relations arm of the Zionist regime, whitewashing genocide with passive tone and false balance. They turn “martyred by Israel” into “killed in violence,” amplify every claim by the occupying regime while demanding impossible proof from Palestinian witnesses, and bury Palestinian voices under endless Zionist talking points.

How convenient it is that Israeli military spokespersons are always available for interviews, while Palestinian journalists are targeted before they can speak. Every Western outlet that has broadcast Zionist propaganda without challenge is complicit in the martyrdom of Anas and his colleagues. These outlets are responsible for hundreds of thousands of martyrs. Their names are written in Palestinian blood.

Now, after announcing plans for further occupation of Gaza, the Zionist regime is killing journalists because silencing them allows genocide to continue without witnesses. When Western media failed to condemn this threat, they became accomplices to the regime’s crimes.

Mondoweiss wrote: When Western journalists finally enter Gaza, they should know that their moral cowardice will follow them like a shadow. They will walk among the ruins of a genocide they failed to stop, interview survivors who refused to believe them, and document crimes they could have prevented simply by telling the truth. They will never possess the courage of the Palestinian journalists murdered by Israel.

The world may have abandoned Palestinian journalists, but Palestinian journalists will never abandon the world to its darkness.