Share this @internewscast.com
Recent Israeli airstrikes that resulted in the deaths of 31 journalists and media support workers in Yemen earlier this month rank as the second-deadliest attack on the press, as reported by the Committee to Protect Journalists, a global watchdog.
The strikes on September 10 targeted residential areas, a military headquarters, and a gas station, killing at least 35 people, according to the health ministry in Yemen’s northern rebel-held region.
Media outlets 26 September and the Yemen newspaper are both located in the government’s Moral Guidance Directorate’s headquarters, said the CPJ.
Nasser al Khadri, the editor-in-chief of 26 September, labelled the incident as an “unprecedented massacre of journalists,” and informed the CPJ that his offices faced attacks in the afternoon.
The outlets affected are under the control of the Iran-backed Houthis, who claim to support Hamas and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Under international law, journalists, even those affiliated with state-run or armed groups, are protected unless they directly engage in hostilities.
CPJ’s report emerges as Israel faces growing scrutiny and criticism for allegedly targeting journalists, an accusation it denies, with nearly 200 deaths in the Gaza Strip since the conflict began almost two years ago, according to the CPJ.
Israel has been labeled as a “regional killer of journalists due to repeated incidents in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and now Yemen, where journalists are often labeled as terrorists or propagandists to justify these killings,” according to CPJ Regional Program Director Sara Qudah.
CPJ, which distinguishes journalists from other media workers, said it has determined that at least nine of the 31 who worked for the two media outlets are journalists, and is still investigating details on other press members.
Israel has repeatedly denied targeting journalists.
When asked for comment on the killing of journalists and media workers, the IDF referred NBC News to a statement issued after the strike, in which it accused the Houthis’ “public relations department” of leading “propaganda efforts” and “psychological terror.”
The IDF said the strikes were a response to the repeated Houthi attacks on Israel, and followed a drone launched by the Houthis that breached Israel’s multilayered air defenses and slammed into a southern Israeli airport.
The Houthis, a religious and military group that control most of Yemen’s northwest including capital Sanaa, have been launching missiles and drones at Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terrorist attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza.
The war has been one of the bloodiest for media workers, and reporters across the Middle East have come under fire as tensions spill beyond Gaza.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 193 Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza since the war there began, alongside six in Lebanon, three in Iran, and now 31 in Yemen, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“Israel is engaging in the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that CPJ has ever documented,” its website reads.
The Foreign Press Association, which represents international media in Israel and the Palestinian territories, has also called on Israel “to halt its abhorrent practice of targeting journalists.”
Israeli forces have killed so many journalists that Reuters has stopped sharing the locations of its teams in the Gaza Strip with the country’s military, the international news agency told NBC News in August.
The deadliest attack on the press recorded by the CPJ was the 2009 Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines, in which 32 journalists were among those killed when a convoy was ambushed.
