Press, rights groups call on Biden to protect journalists in Gaza conflict

WASHINGTON

Six press and rights organizations called on US President Joe Biden on Wednesday to protect journalists amid the Israel-Gaza war, in which more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed over the past three months.

In a letter to Biden, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and five other press freedom and human rights organizations said at least 79 journalists and media workers have been killed in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon amid hostilities between Israeli forces and Palestinian and Lebanese armed groups since Oct. 7.

"We believe your administration can and must do more to effectively pursue accountability for journalists killed in the hostilities and to protect and support local and international journalists covering it," said the letter.

The other five organizations are Freedom House, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Human Rights Watch, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and Reporters Without Borders.

They demand that Israel and Egypt allow international journalists access to Gaza and that Israel cease communication blackouts.

The letter also called on Biden to conduct thorough, transparent and public assessments of the end-use of American
weapons and military assistance to Israel.

It also called for Biden to support "swift, transparent and independent investigations into the killing of all journalists and ending the longstanding pattern of impunity in the killings of journalists by the IDF, including Palestinian American Shireen Abu Akleh.”

Three more Palestinian journalists were killed in fresh Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 115 since Oct. 7, the government media office said.

Israel has pounded Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 23,357 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 59,410 others, according to health authorities.

Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas offensive.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced, while all of the population is food insecure, according to the UN. Hundreds of thousands of people are living without shelter, and ⁠less than half of the aid trucks are entering the territory than before the start of the conflict.