Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, singled Gaza out among the places where she said that reporters have been killed in conflict zones in a Nov. 2 statement for International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.
“Today, across the world, journalists continue to be harassed and intimidated, violently attacked and arbitrarily surveilled, met with disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks—all for speaking truth to power,” the U.S. envoy stated on Sunday.
“Those in conflict zones face even greater danger,” she stated. “In Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere, journalists have been killed as they dared to report the facts.”
“In this moment in which democracy is under attack, we count on journalists to expose corruption and counter disinformation and to facilitate the exchange of ideas and shine a spotlight on human rights abuses,” she added. “Journalists have the right to live and report without fear. Let us all work to support and protect them as they tell the stories that change our world for the better.”
Israeli journalists were among those whom Hamas terrorists killed on Oct. 7, 2023. Thomas-Greenfield statement did not address Israel’s charges, and evidence that it has provided, that some of those identified as journalists in Gaza have direct ties to Palestinian terror groups.
António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, stated that “recent years have seen an alarming rate of fatalities in conflict zones—in particular in Gaza, which has seen the highest number of killings of journalists and media workers in any war in decades.”
According to the U.S. State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Hamas in Gaza is guilty of “serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including violence or threats of violence against journalists, unjustified detentions of journalists and censorship.”
The Palestinian Authority is guilty of similar crimes in Judea and Samaria, as is Israel in Gaza during the war, the State Department stated.
