Cape Town journalists march in solidarity with media workers targeted and killed in Gaza

Hundreds of people marched along the Sea Point promenade in Cape Town on Sunday, 17 August, to protest against the targeted killing of journalists in the Gaza Strip. The march was led by local journalists holding a sign bearing the names of more than 200 Palestinian media workers who have reportedly been killed since 7 October 2023.

The march was organised by Journalists Against Apartheid, with support from other organisations including Gift of the Givers, South African Jews for a Free Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The demonstration comes exactly a week after an Israeli airstrike on a media tent near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City killed six journalists. Among those killed were Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh; camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal; local freelance reporter Mohammad Al-Khaldi; and Moaman Aliwa, a camera assistant.

The Israeli military released a statement claiming it had targeted Al-Sharif because he allegedly headed a Hamas cell. However, the Israeli government has not provided evidence to back up these claims. The Al Jazeera Media Network and the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) have condemned the killing of Al-Sharif and his colleagues as an assassination and a “blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”.

Sharif Mosa, a Palestinian photojournalist living in South Africa, spoke at Sunday’s demonstration, describing the targeted killing of Gazan journalists as an attempt to “steal” the Palestinian story by eliminating witnesses.

“Every colonial project survives on two weapons: physical extermination of the colonised people and control of the narrative. The power to erase, distort and rewrite reality,” said Mosa.

“[These journalists] were killed not because they were in the wrong place, but because they were in the right place. Journalists are the antidote of colonial propaganda… Killing journalists is how Israel tries to maintain control over the narrative. But every journalist killed makes the truth louder, and today is a statement about that.”

Crystal Orderson, a South African journalist, condemned the “brutality” meted out against journalists in Gaza who were attempting to document the reality on the ground.

“The question today is, since when has journalism become a crime? Clearly, for the journalists like Anas [al-Sharif]… reporting the truth has become that crime,” she said.

“We’re standing here today in solidarity… We grew up under apartheid, we knew the role of the media under apartheid… I want to remind the young journalists that it’s important to tell the story of truth… [and] human suffering. We can’t be silent. In newsrooms across South Africa, we need to stand up for the truth.”

Al-Sharif and his colleagues were among many Palestinian journalists who have been documenting the devastation wrought by Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip in the wake of the 7 October 2023 Hamas assault on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 60,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. This includes a large number of media workers on the frontline.

Read more: ‘Journalism is not a crime’ — SA journalists demand justice for slain colleagues in Gaza

Waiting for death

In the month before Al-Sharif was killed, both the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Irene Khan, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, released statements expressing concern about his safety. This followed “online attacks and unfounded accusations by the Israeli army” about Al-Sharif’s affiliation with Hamas, according to the UN.

Khan said that fears surrounding Al-Sharif’s safety were well founded as “there is growing evidence that journalists in Gaza have been targeted and killed by the Israeli army on the basis of unsubstantiated claims that they were Hamas terrorists”.

The CPJ said the Israel Defense Forces had previously made unfounded claims that journalists it killed in Gaza were terrorists, including four Al Jazeera staff.

At Sunday’s march, Journalists Against Apartheid demanded that:

• Media organisations call Israel’s killing of media workers “what it is – a war crime”;
• Israel must immediately release all arbitrarily detained Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza; and
• The Israeli media ban must end, allowing foreign correspondents entry to Gaza.

“We stand in solidarity with protesters around the world who have condemned Israel’s reprehensible killings this week. Governments must act immediately to protect remaining Palestinian journalists before all of Gaza’s media workers are killed. We stand with international human rights organisations who recognise that Israel’s military actions and policies in Palestine amount to apartheid and genocide,” said Journalists Against Apartheid.

In late 2023, South Africa filed a case asking the International Court of Justice to declare that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Almost two years later, the case is still ongoing.

International media ban

Since 7 October 2023, no international journalists have been permitted entry to Gaza, other than a few controlled visits alongside Israeli soldiers that restricted independent reporting. Human rights investigators have also been barred.

This has made Palestinian journalists working in the region the primary source of facts and reports about the effects of bombardments by Israeli forces and the growing threat of starvation among Gazans due to the blockade on aid.

International media and human rights organisations, including the CPJ, have called for Israel to allow media workers and investigators into Gaza to document the situation on the ground.

Restricted access to the region has made it challenging to establish the exact number of journalists killed. Sara Qudah, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Committee to Protect Journalists, told Daily Maverick the organisation was often forced to rely on media reports when tracking the loss of life.

“The grave reality of documenting attacks on the press in the Israel-Gaza war is that we have known of instances where whole families have been killed in strikes, leaving no one to contact to verify details of a journalist or media worker’s case. Other times, we face challenges getting hold of the outlet, or remaining family members don’t even have information about the outlets the journalists worked at,” she said.

The CPJ puts the number of journalists and media workers killed in the Israel-Gaza war between 2023 to 2025 at more than 190, which exceeds the number of press members that were killed worldwide in the previous three years (2020 to 2022). However, some organisations have estimated that the death toll is higher. DM