Francesca Albanese slams global silence over Gaza journalists' deaths

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, has welcomed a powerful statement by French journalist groups backing their Palestinian counterparts under siege in Gaza.

“What does it take for other journalists to oppose the slaughter of their colleagues?” she asked.

Since Israel's war on Gaza began in October 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has recorded the deaths of at least 175 journalists across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Israel.

The government media office in Gaza puts the toll even higher, at at least 211. In a joint letter published in Le Monde, French media unions accused the Israeli military of deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza.

“The Israeli army is enforcing a media blackout to silence those witnessing what growing numbers of UN bodies and rights groups are now calling genocidal acts,” they warned.