On Monday, 60 international media and human rights organizations urged the European Union to suspend its partnership with Israel and impose sanctions, claiming that Israel is ‘massacring the journalists’ in Gaza. The organizations have jointly issued this statement led by Reporters Without Borders after they reported increased cases more Journalist deaths in line with the Israel and Hamas conflict.
The appeal was made prior to a meeting of EU’s foreign ministers in Brussels that is planned for August 29. As per this statement, the attacks on the part of Hamas on Israel on 7th October 2023, and the follow-up military activities by Israel on Gaza, were the deadliest for journalists in the last decades. According to the statement, more than 130 Palestinian journalists and other media workers have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7, with 30 of them documented to have been killed while performing their operations. Also, three Lebanon journalists and one Israeli have been among the dead during this period.
The coalition of organizations is calling to pressure the EU to act and suspend the Association Agreement with Israel alongside introducing targeted sanctions against those individuals responsible for the given press freedom abuses.