South African journalists and the Gaza crisis: A plea for ethical reporting and advocacy
Israel has been indiscriminately slaughtering men, women and children with impunity for close to two years. Among the civilian casualties are a swath of journalists whom the occupier’s army appears to be targeting.
A tally maintained by International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) claims that 233 journalists have been killed as of August 26, 2025, 219 of whom were Palestinian.
The Peoples Media Consortium (PMC) has expressed deep sadness about the killings and called for the South African media to uphold media ethics and report on the atrocities.
“National media organisations cannot remain silent about this and the local enablers and supporters of the genocide,” the PMC said.
This comes after the Daily Maverick was `accused of silencing Gaza voices after Professor Pierre de Vos, a well-known legal expert, claimed on X that editor Jillian Green informed him that the media outlet would not publish his Gaza reflection article.
Recently, six Palestinian journalists were killed when Israeli occupation forces targeted the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza. The attack murdered Reuters news agency cameraman Hussam al-Masri, who was running a live stream from the hospital when the first attack occurred.
The journalists slain included Mariam Abu Dagga, a freelancer with the Associated Press, and Mohammed Salama, an Al Jazeera photographer; Moaz Abu Taha, a freelance journalist with contributions to Reuters and other sites; and Ahmed Abu Aziz.
A freelancer for Reuters, Valerie Zink, wrote a public letter to the organisation quitting after it was accused of remaining silent in the face of one of its journalists getting killed.
“By repeating Israel’s genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility, willfully abandoning the most basic responsibility of journalism, Western media outlets have made possible the killing of more journalists in two years on one tiny strip of land than in WW1, WWII, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine combined
“The fact that Anas Al-Sharif’s work won a Pulitzer Prize for Reuters did not compel them to come to his defence when Israeli occupation forces placed him on a ‘hit list’ of journalists accused of being Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants,” Zink said on X.
On top of daily killings, Israeli forces have been accused of purposefully starving the population in Gaza.
According to the most recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) research, famine is expected to spread from Gaza Governorate to Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis Governorates in the next weeks.
“Classifying famine means that the most extreme category is triggered when three critical thresholds – extreme food deprivation, acute malnutrition and starvation-related deaths – have been breached. The latest analysis now affirms on the basis of reasonable evidence that these criteria have been met,” said the UN in a statement.
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