Why is Israel getting away with killing so many journalists in Gaza?

Since October 2023, more than 100 journalists have been killed, injured, or remain missing in Gaza and southern Lebanon, according to Palestinian authorities. Rights groups have called the number of journalists killed in Israel's war on Gaza "unparalleled" in modern history.

These figures are difficult to contemplate. They constitute an impersonal enumeration of the deaths of skilled and indigenous reporters who offer an opportunity for many in the world to finally live with their eyes open and consider the underrepresented perspectives of the region and the Palestinian-Israeli issue, the epicentre of so much strife and heartbreak for more than 75 years.

The targeted killing of witnesses, as such, is the most egregious form of witness tampering and has become a strategic necessity in the race for narrative control over what many have called a genocidal war.

For historians of journalism, this is familiar: if you don’t like the message, then kill the messengers. Normally, the killing of journalists anywhere in the world is met with severe criticism and protest, particularly within the hierarchy of journalism and their various guilds and associations.

But over the past few months, normal, by all indicators, has been tossed out the window. The lack of outcry from the patricians of Western journalism has been deafening and has unwittingly destabilised the overwhelming influence of Western media giants on global narratives.

With the death toll of reporters increasing, two questions are begged. First, why is Israel getting away with killing so many journalists? Second, what is it about reportage and witnessing that makes killing the witnesses strategically valuable?

Understanding this means taking a look at the roots and ideologies that make witness tampering pass with impunity. There are a few causes supported by research, such as the legacy of colonialism and its close cousin, contemporary marginalisation and dehumanisation.

When it comes to Palestinians, as well as the broader Middle East, the impact of colonialism significantly influences perceptions and receptions to mass killings of civilians and reporters. Edward Said and other scholars are certain of this. The legacies of the Empire of the past were constructed by way of depriving members of these colonised societies of their cultural distinctions and, in fact, their very humanity.

Even colonial powers are beholden to their stakeholders and audiences. As such, colonial narratives are produced to justify land grabs and resource exploitation under the guise of humanising a humanity-impaired people or developing an underdeveloped society.

Though colonialism on the ground has largely ended in most countries, the ideational foundations of colonialism persist in informing media narratives and public perceptions that make war conceits and their valorisation more palatable. Stubborn views of the East, established through a prism of superiority, ultimately underwrites the narrative construction of Palestinians.

The results are not subtle. For three-quarters of a century, Palestinian identity and culture, in the form of their flag, and of course, the terrifying black-white chequered scarves, have been construed as signs of radicalism, violence, and antisemitism, which, in turn, nearly criminalise Palestinian personhood.

As many have noted, the narrative work of dehumanising Palestinians produces results that are often lethal and humiliating. It also produces Global North deafness to Palestinian civilian suffering and, by extension, indifference to the loss of Palestinian journalists and their contextualised reporting.

Immediately after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Yoav Galland, Israeli Defense Minister, called Palestinians “human animals” and received no formal push back. How can anyone forget that?

What he said out loud has likely lived comfortably in the interior of extremist Israeli consciousness for decades. Words and their popular acceptance pave the way for violence with licence and cancel popular backlash. In other words, materialising an intellectual and epistemological media ecology that permits the acceptance of “human animals” is conducive to exploitation of the worst kind.

What makes the killing of journalists strategic is the passive and unwitting acceptance of knowing little and disregarding truth as an aspiration. That’s culpable and foundational ignorance, as Jose Medina and other scholars have pointed out. The affordances of digital media make not knowing an intentional act. This may be benign in some areas of the information flood, but not when it comes to witnessing a living and breathing genocidal war.

The silencing of witnesses suppresses more than information. Indigenous reporters and their storytelling, in this case Gazan Palestinian journalists, offer contextual, native, and, when appropriate, empathetic reportage that is absolutely necessary for a more complete understanding of conflict.

Parachute journalism (Western reporters flying into the region to report one-off stories) has the capacity to muzzle, if not erase, contextualised news gathering. Witnesses tell us what they see and what they know of the language, culture, living arrangements of extended families, uninterrupted fear under brutal occupation, details of a lifestyle of continual forced privation and shortages, the interruption of education, travel and work restrictions, psychological traumas, scant medical supplies, and so much more. There is nothing superfluous about these perspectives.

The contrary is true: they are necessary to come close to a fuller understanding of a genocidal conflict supported by the United States without hesitation. Killing witnesses is killing a comprehension. It takes the light out of enlightenment.

Side-taking is an interesting response to conflict, and, at times, it totalises our reactions to the sides we take. When sacred ethical and moral premises are trampled upon, we avoid thinking about it because of its potential challenge to our taking of sides. You don’t have to be anti- or pro-Palestinian or anti- or pro-Israeli to have strong feelings about violence against children.

The interior dynamics of media and public mindfulness have a tall barrier to scale, where culpable ignorance becomes a tool for rationalising the unfolding of atrocities. The ethical imperative, right now, is not merely about taking a stand on the conflict itself, but about challenging the frameworks of ignorance and misinformation that perpetuate these carnages unchecked.

In this light, the egregious policy of eliminating witnesses and storytellers institutes a form of intellectual terrorism and undermines the basic principles of information gathering and knowledge distribution.