As part of the ongoing genocide waged by the Israeli occupation against Gaza for nearly two years, Palestinian journalists continue to pay with their lives in an effort to expose the truth. This highlights a deliberate campaign of killings that spares no civilians, aid workers, or members of the press.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate announced the killing of journalist Khaled Al-Madhoun, a cameraman for Palestine TV, shot dead by Israeli occupation forces while covering events in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza. The targeting of Al-Madhoun comes within a systematic policy aimed at silencing the Palestinian voice, erasing the narrative, and concealing the scale of crimes being committed in the Strip.
His killing raises the total number of journalists killed in Gaza to 240, according to consistent union and media reports — making this the heaviest toll of journalists deliberately targeted in the history of modern warfare.
Earlier, the Government Media Office in Gaza had reported that the number of journalists killed stood at 239, following the death of journalist Islam Badr on 10 August. Badr was killed along with five of his colleagues from Al Jazeera when Israeli occupation warplanes bombed their vehicle near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
The deliberate targeting of journalists cannot be dismissed as accidental incidents; it falls within a calculated policy designed to terrorise Palestinian media, prevent the transmission of atrocities, and silence the truth. This constitutes a blatant violation of international law and humanitarian norms, which guarantee the protection of journalists and media professionals. The Israeli occupation, fully aware of the power of images and testimonies, deliberately wields assassination as a weapon to silence witnesses to its crimes.
The killing of Al-Madhoun and his colleagues confirms the grim reality that the occupation deliberately and directly targets anyone exposing its atrocities. This scene reaffirms the moral and legal responsibility of the international community to act against these crimes, which aim to erase the Palestinian people, their memory, and their presence on their land.
Since 7 October 2023, Israeli occupation forces have continued committing genocide in Gaza. The latest figures show 62,622 killed and 157,673 injured, most of them women and children, with over 9,000 missing under the rubble. Starvation and siege have so far claimed 281 lives, including 114 children, amid mass forced displacement affecting hundreds of thousands of families.
