Under fire

The murder of any journalist in the course of reporting war and conflict is a breach of International Humanitarian Law according to the Geneva Conventions.

Now, the Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 19 journalists have been killed on both sides of the latest outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Among them was Reuters videographer Islam Abdallah, who was killed by Israeli fire in southern Lebanon. Six other journalists were seriously injured.

The safety of war correspondents is an ongoing problem. However, recently it has become clear that judicial efforts to ensure the rights of journalists to do their job safely are being challenged. We have also seen how investigations into the killing of journalists get politicised. On 11 May 2022, inquiries by the United Nations into the last year’s shooting of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in the Palestinian Territories were hampered by difficulties in getting evidence from the Israeli authorities.

Domestic law can provide some additional safeguards alongside International Humanitarian Law where there is ambiguity. As scrutiny of a decision in 2017 shows, the Israeli judiciary has provided a check on abuses by decision-makers of constitutional free speech guarantees. 

But there have been recent, drastic changes to the laws in Israel which have reduced these checks and balances. In fact, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, passed a controversial law in July this year, limiting the Supreme Court’s ability to act as a safety check on Israeli decision-making.

In the past, an alliance between journalists and the legal profession in Israel had provided a modicum of safety assurances before the Court. In one case, both foreign correspondents and local journalists had been banned from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in 2017, which is a site holy to the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths in Jerusalem. According to interviews with journalists, the Israeli Defence Force had said that journalists had been prohibited from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque because of concerns about their safety.

In 2017, the Israeli chapter of the advocacy group, the Foreign Press Association, challenged this ad hoc ban in the High Court of Israel which held that damage had been irreversibly done to the public interest. It granted an injunction on the restriction pending the full restoration of rights for journalists.

A holistic approach to International Humanitarian Law is necessary where there is a lack of detail about issues such as access to information However, the recent constitutional amendments in Israel are proving that any legal framework for safeguards is weakening.

Simon Levett, CMT Industry Fellow