The results are positive, and that is the paradox: while the conflict between Israel and Hamas is proving particularly deadly for journalists, 17 of them having lost their lives while doing their job, the number The total number of reporters killed in the world has never been this low since 2002, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
In 2023, 45 journalists lost their lives in the line of duty, compared to 61 last year, according to RSF’s annual report, published Thursday. We have to go back more than 20 years to find a total lower than this year (33 in 2002), where more than a third of the losses are linked to the conflict in the Middle East, including 13 in Gaza alone.
“This in no way reduces the tragedy in Gaza but we are observing a regular decline, far from the more than 140 journalists killed in 2012, then in 2013”, mainly due to the wars in Syria and Iraq, explains the RSF secretary general. , Christophe Deloire.
Fight against impunity, “work of intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, the media themselves” or “greater caution”… The causes are multiple and “can be discussed”, according to him.
More than 60 journalists killed since the start of the conflict in the Middle East
The organization lists a total of “63 journalists killed” in the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict on October 7, whether or not related to their profession. In detail, in addition to the 13 journalists who died “under Israeli fire” in Gaza, according to RSF, this war caused the death of three working journalists in Lebanon and another in Israel, killed by Hamas.
In November, RSF filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court for “war crimes” committed against journalists in Gaza and against the Israeli journalist. An AFP investigation, published last week, into the bombing which killed a Reuters video journalist, Issam Abdallah, in southern Lebanon on October 13 and injured six others, including the Reuters photographer. ‘AFP Christina Assi, seriously injured, points to an Israeli tank shell.
The conflict in Ukraine, for its part, cost the lives of two journalists in 2023, including AFP reporter Arman Soldin, “the only journalist to have lost his life in a country other than his own” this year, on a total of 11 since the Russian invasion of February 2022. The overall 2023 toll is also distinguished by the “notable drop” in deaths in Latin and Central America with six journalists killed, compared to 26 in 2022.