ISTANBUL

Palestinian journalists in Gaza are “models of heroism, of commitment to information, of all the things that the best journalism stands for,” Australian human rights expert Chris Sidoti has said.

“When you ask me about journalists, my absolute first comment is that the journalists in Gaza have been extraordinary, absolutely. Absolutely,” Sidoti told reporters at the National Press Club of Australia on Wednesday.

Israel has killed 249 Palestinian journalists in the besieged coastal enclave since October 7, 2023, when it launched a genocidal war on Gaza, killing over 66,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children.

“In a situation where the Israeli authorities from day one have excluded foreign journalists, we have depended entirely on Palestinian journalists in Gaza to get information about what is happening,” Sidoti said, noting pressures faced by Australian journalists back home while reporting on the Gaza conflict.

“And they have done so not just with their own investigations and reporting, but with video evidence, photographic evidence, and things that can be confirmed,” said Sidoti, who earlier served as commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission.

Sidoti said the Palestinian journalists have had “an eye to producing evidence that we use in our commission because it is verifiable evidence, and hundreds of them have lost their lives as a result of it.”

“So, when you ask me what has been the performance of journalists, I have to say that the Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been models of heroism, of commitment to information, of all the things that the best journalism stands for,” he said. 

Pressure on Australian journalists 

Sidoti also revealed that journalists in Australia face "enormous pressure."

“I have been told by Australian journalists about the pressure that they are under… (who) ring me up and ask for information and almost apologetically say, ‘I'm getting this information from you, but I don't know whether I'll ever be able to use it because I may not be allowed to publish,’” Sidoti said.

“This is being said to me in words to that effect… There's plenty of fear around.”

Notably, an Australian federal judge last month ruled that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) pay journalist Antoinette Lattouf an additional AU $150,000 (approximately $98,000) on top of the AU $70,000 already paid for firing her over a social media post about the Gaza war.

The court found that ABC had surrendered to the "pro-Israeli lobby" in her case.

However, the human rights expert Sidoti said since the war began two years ago, now, “we have seen more and better and stronger reporting because I think that there is… a general realization that... (what) the Israeli government and the Israeli military—not the Israeli people—the Israeli government and the Israeli military are doing in Gaza is totally unacceptable.”

“And that realization is emboldening journalists to be able to report far more directly,” he said, stressing the UN commission had found genocide was happening in Gaza.