‘Catastrophic’: Journalists say ethnic cleansing taking place in a news void in northern Gaza

On Wednesday, November 6, an Israeli strike killed at least 15 people in a house in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza. But communications difficulties meant that the Gaza health ministry struggled to determine the death toll. This is just one example of countless others where local reporters were able to help verify information about potential atrocities during Israel’s escalating offensive in the area, journalists tell CPJ.

Israel has stepped up systematic attack on journalists and media infrastructure since the start of its northern Gaza campaign. Israeli strikes killed at least five journalists in October and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began a smear campaign against six Al Jazeera journalists reporting on the north. There are now almost no professional journalists left in the north to document what several international institutions have described as an ethnic cleansing campaign. Israel has not allowed international media independent access to Gaza in the 13 months since the war began.

Getting information about the impact of the war on journalists – and therefore a clear picture of the impact of the war itself – was already challenging when CPJ issued a report in May on the challenges of verification. Journalists interviewed by CPJ in late October and early November said that the continued attacks on the media – along with the food shortages, continual displacement, and communications blackouts experienced by all Gazans – placed severe constraints on coverage of the impact of Israel’s northern Gaza military offensive. The offensive began on October 5 by targeting the town of Jabalia and its refugee camp before spreading to all of northern Gaza in what the Israeli military said was a bid to stop militant Hamas fighters from regrouping.

 “Israel is accused of adopting a ‘starve or leave’ policy to force Palestinians out of northern Gaza. It seems clear that the systematic attacks on the media and campaign to discredit those few journalists who remain is a deliberate tactic to prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing there,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “Reporters are crucial in bearing witness during a war, without them, the world won’t be able to write history.”

Reports from the area say that the IDF burned schools, attacked hospitals and medical staff, and detained and abused men. Scores of people have been killed, tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee, and families separated as the attack continues.

The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres; Jordan’s foreign secretary; and the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem are among those describing the assault as an “ethnic cleansing,” with the U.N. Human Rights Office fearing it could lead to the potential destruction of the Palestinian population. 

A news void is one of the direct impacts of this campaign, potentially leaving possible war crimes with no evidence or documentation.

CPJ documented the following threats to journalists and press freedom in northern Gaza during the recent weeks:

Journalists killed in strikes

CPJ confirmed at least five killings of journalists in Jabalia and Gaza City since October 6: 

• An Israeli drone missile killed AlHassan Hamad, an 18-year-old Palestinian freelance photographer who worked with several media outlets during the war, shortly after he finished a video report in Jabalia on October 6. 

• An Israeli drone strike killed Mohammed Al-Tanani, a 26-year-old Palestinian camera operator for the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV, while his TV crew was reporting on Israeli forces operations in the Jabalia refugee camp on October 9. The strike also injured TV correspondent Tamer Lubbad. Both were wearing “Press” vests and helmets at the time.

• Three Palestinian journalists — Nadia Emad Al Sayed, Saed Radwan, and Haneen Baroud — were killed alongside eight others in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City on October 27. The bombs hit one of the classrooms they had turned into a makeshift newsroom. 

“The situation is catastrophic and beyond description,” a camera operator for the privately owned Al-Ghad TV, Abed AlKarim Al-Zwaidi, told CPJ. “We do not know what our fate will be in light of these circumstances.” 

The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these killings, repeating previous statements it could not fully address questions if sufficient details about individuals were not provided. The statement reiterated previous comments that it “directs its strikes only towards military targets and military operatives, and does not target civilian objects and civilians, including media organizations and journalists.”

CPJ is also investigating reports that two other journalists were killed during this time in northern Gaza. 

Starvation and aid blocks

Israel, accused of blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza since the start of the war, has throttled food and humanitarian aid from entering northern Gaza since October 1 and ordered all residents to evacuate, making it all but impossible for journalists to keep working, several members of the media told CPJ.       

Al-Zwaidi – one of the journalists who described Israel’s actions as ethnic cleansing – told CPJ that journalists, like most civilians in northern Gaza, “have not had food or anything clean to drink for more than 20 days.” He said most journalists are “trying to eat the minimum amount of food that keeps them alive,” and they drink what is “semi-wastewater, full of germs.” 

The IDF’s October 31 response to CPJ’s request for comment said that more than 392 aid trucks, mainly carrying food, had entered northern Gaza in recent weeks, and supplies were available in warehouses scattered throughout the northern region.

The IDF also cited October 28 and 30 announcements by COGAT (Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories), the Israeli unit responsible for the coordination and facilitation of humanitarian initiatives, that it had facilitated patient and staff evacuations and delivered supplies at the Kamal Adwan hospital. One of the area’s last functioning medical facilities, Kamal Adwan, has been repeatedly attacked by Israel, which claims it has been used by Hamas.

Tor Wennesland, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the U.N. Security Council on October 29 that northern Gaza had received virtually no humanitarian assistance since the start of October. The U.S. envoy to the U.N. warned that Israel must improve its flow of aid or face cuts to American military assistance.

Journalists arrested, detained

• Israeli military forces arrested Nidal Elian, editor-in-chief at the satellite channel Al-Quds Today, on October 22 in Beit Lahia. 

His wife told CPJ that Israeli military forces issued an order through a drone’s loudspeaker for residents to evacuate the area because the IDF was going to destroy it and to go to a school near the Kamal Adwan hospital. When they arrived, Israeli soldiers separated the men from the women and detained Elian. Elian’s whereabouts remain unknown.

• The IDF also detained Al-Ghad TV’s Al-Zwaidi for several hours on October 25. 

After around four hours of bombing and firing on the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia,  Al-Zwaidi told CPJ that Israeli forces ordered everyone in the hospital to go into the yard and remove their clothes down to their underwear. The journalist said their hands were tied tightly and they were forced to march to a nearby Israeli army barrack, with soldiers and tanks following them. 

Al-Zwaidi told CPJ that the soldiers pressed the muzzles of their guns to the detainees’ heads and ordered them to kneel with their heads on the ground for more than five hours in the sun. He said the soldiers beat him twice before releasing him.  

The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these detentions, saying that the IDF detains individuals suspected of terrorist activity and releases anyone found not to be involved. The IDF added that detained individuals are “treated in accordance with international law.” 

Coverage constraints

Journalists who spoke to CPJ said there are very few reporters left to document atrocities in northern Gaza. Those who remain have to struggle with communication and internet shutdowns that limit their ability to report the news.

“There is a frightening difficulty in [obtaining] media coverage inside Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip,” Al-Zwaidi told CPJ. Journalists are trying to continue to circumvent the shutdowns by using e-sims, but the need to find areas of higher elevation to get a signal increases their risk of targeting by Israeli forces.

“I face death at every moment in my attempts to provide media coverage and keep the northern Gaza Strip in the spotlight,” Al-Zwaidi said. 

The IDF has also prevented reporters from approaching sites that have been bombed or attacked, further suppressing documentation of alleged crimes, Osama Al Ashi, a camera operator with China’s state-run CCTV television and freelance documentary producer, told CPJ. 

Equipment shortages, low morale

In addition to shortages of vital equipment such as cameras and protective helmets and vests, the morale of journalists still in northern Gaza is dropping as “they feel ignored by the rest of the world,” Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Quraiqi told CPJ. 

“The lack of interest and assistance directed to journalists locally and internationally allows their continuous targeting and killing,” Quraiqi told CPJ. “Unfortunately, no one stands with journalists, neither in the northern nor the southern Gaza Strip, from official, regional, or international bodies, to provide them with the necessary support.”

Northern Gaza “has become one of the most difficult and dangerous environments for journalistic work in the world,” Al Ashi told CPJ. 

“The feeling of fear and anxiety [occurs] all the time. I fear for my family, and I fear being among them; it is a very difficult feeling,” Al Ashi told CPJ. “But I am convinced that my presence as a journalist in the northern Gaza Strip to convey the image is very important. Otherwise, Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip would be isolated from the entire outside world.”

The difficulties for journalists in northern Gaza “is greater than any description,” Basel Khaireddine, a northern Gaza correspondent for the Iranian state-run broadcaster Al-Alam TV, told CPJ. 

“There is a constant deliberate targeting of journalists, not only because they are journalists and transmit the news, but also because the occupation targets all residents,” Khaireddine told CPJ. “Everyone is within its range of fire, and it does not differentiate between a woman, a man, or a child. It also does not differentiate between a journalist and others, even though journalists are civilians.

Restricting medical care

Amid the destruction of Northern Gaza’s medical facilities and detention of medical staff, as of November 8. Israel had not approved the emergency medical evacuation of Al Jazeera camera operators Fadi Al Wahidi and Ali Al Attar for treatment outside the Gaza Strip. Al Wahidi was severely wounded by a gunshot wound in Jabalia on October 9; Al-Attar sustained serious injuries from shrapnel from an October 7 Israeli airstrike.  

 CPJ has joined other rights organizations in urging Israel to authorize their evacuation and treatment. 

The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these injured journalists on October 31 by referring CPJ to COGAT. CPJ’s November 1 email to COGAT asking whether the journalists would be allowed to receive medical care outside the Strip did not receive a response by CPJ’s requested November 4 deadline.

Terror allegations against journalists

On October 23, the IDF accused six Palestinian journalists working with Al Jazeera in Gaza of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, raising fears that they could be targeted for killing by Israeli forces.  

The journalists are Anas al-Sharif, Talal Aruki, Ismail Farid, Alaa Salama, Ashraf Saraj, and Hossam Shabat.

Salama, Al Jazeera Mubasher’s correspondent in southern Gaza and a journalist for 18 years, told CPJ he denied these “false allegations” against him, adding that he worries that “the Israeli army is creating justifications to…target journalists, especially [as] the Palestinian media has played a major role in refuting the Israeli narrative.”

Saraj, Al Jazeera Mubasher’s correspondent in central and southern Gaza and a journalist for six years, told CPJ he has felt increasingly in danger since the accusations were made. 

“Since the first day of the war, I have continued my journalistic work, and I have proof of that because the screen belies any allegations,” Saraj told CPJ. “Today, I feel like I am waiting for death and the moment when my martyrdom is announced.”

Shabat, Al Jazeera Mubasher’s correspondent in northern Gaza, told CPJ that anxiety and fear would not deter them from continuing their coverage.

“We convey the truth on Al Jazeera Mubasher, and we move within the areas classified by Israel as safe,” Shabat said. “We are citizens, and we convey their voices. Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth and do not belong to the Hamas movement.” 

Al Jazeera has rejected the allegations against the journalists and CPJ has condemned Israel’s claims that they are members of militant groups, noting that Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven statements without producing credible evidence.  

The IDF said in its October 31 response to CPJ that it had no further comment on the six journalists beyond what was published on October 23.