99 journalists killed last year, 77 of them in Israel’s war on Gaza, says global media watchdog

With 99 killings, 2023 was the deadliest year for journalists in almost a decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday. Of these, 77 were killed while reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza.

Killings of journalists globally would have dropped year-on-year had it not been for the deaths in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon, the global media watchdog said in its annual report. “In December 2023, CPJ reported that more journalists were killed in the first three months of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year,” the organisation said.

The report documents 77 journalists killed in Israel’s war on Gaza. While 72 of them were Palestinians, three were Lebanese and two Israelis.

“Journalists in Gaza are bearing witness on the frontlines,” Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told Al Jazeera. “The immense loss suffered by Palestinian journalists in this war will have long-term impacts for journalism not just in the Palestinian territories but for the region and beyond. Every journalist killed is a further blow to our understanding of the world.”

As of Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ preliminary investigations showed that the number of journalists and media workers who had died in the Gaza war...

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