The toll in Gaza continues to rise, and with it, the number of blue press vests and helmets on bodies. Never in this century have so many journalists and media professionals been killed during a conflict – over 122 have died in the region since October 7, according to UN reports this month.

While Israel is just weeks away from submitting a report to International Court of Justice about actions it has taken to prevent genocidal acts and punish incitement to genocide, complaints have been mounting against actions taken by its citizens at the International Criminal Court.

International bodies, politicians and non-governmental organisations are trying to ask if journalists have been killed in “targeted” moves, but it remains unclear whether these questions will lead to any convictions or go down the path taken by the murder case of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

Meanwhile, the killings have made it more difficult to get ground reportage from a region impacted by internet blackouts, damage to communication networks and media offices, and Israeli restrictions on fuel. Apart from Palestinian journalists, the few foreign journalists allowed in Gaza have been permitted only if they are embedded with Israeli forces.

And considering the situation on the ground, Anne Boccandé, editorial director at Reporters Without Borders, earlier said the Palestinian enclave is vulnerable to the possibility of becoming an information “black hole”. 

ICC complaints

In November last year, the International Criminal Court confirmed that it had received a referral from several countries, including South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Comoros and Djibouti to probe the “situation in the State of Palestine”.

This is besides the complaints specifically referring to journalists’ deaths.

Reporters Without Borders, for example, has filed two complaints, the first on October 31 and another on December 22, to probe all the deaths of Palestinian journalists, allegedly at the hands of Israeli forces.

The allegations in the latest complaint by Reporters Without Borders mentioned Asem Al-Barsh, an Al Najah radio journalist killed by sniper fire, Montaser Al-Sawaf, whose home was targeted twice by missile fire, Hassouna Salim of the Quds News agency, killed by a missile after receiving death threats. Sari Mansour, a photo-journalist for Quds News, and Samer Abu Daqqa, an Al Jazeera correspondent who appears to have been killed by a precision shot fired from a drone that also wounded Al Jazeera bureau chief Wael Dahdouh.

UN experts have also pointed to “disturbing reports” that attacks on journalists may be a “deliberate strategy by Israeli forces” to silence “critical reporting” as they were “clearly identifiable in jackets and helmets marked ‘press’ or travelling in well-marked press vehicles”.

The Palestinian voice has, meanwhile, shrunk in several prominent global outlets. According to a study of five top American dailies by US outlet Media Matters For America,  The New York Times and The Washington Post quoted the perspectives of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in 64 percent and 55 percent of their articles in the first two weeks of the violence following the October 7 attacks, respectively.

The RSF, this week, said it had urged the UN Security Council to “immediately enforce Resolution 2222 (2015) on the protection of journalists”. It also noted that Rafah, which was earlier referred to as a “security zone” by Israel, is where most of the journalists who had to leave Gaza have taken shelter. The RSF also pointed to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate’s statement according to which the offices of nearly 50 media outlets in Gaza have been “totally or partially” destroyed.

ICC bias?

The ICC, which can address impunity for individuals but not states under the Rome Statute, has 123 signatory states – Palestine joined it in 2015 after prolonged discussions about its statehood.

Targeting journalists is a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute. And the RSF’s complaints are likely to be clubbed with the case already on the ICC’s table pertaining to allegations of crimes committed by the Israeli military and the situation in Palestine.

But while the ICC is yet to finish its probe, history and the current situation indicate there is a possibility that it may turn out to be like the ICJ ruling – hailed by some as a triumph of a rules-based international legal system, criticised by many for being insufficient, and even portrayed as a complete victory for Israel.

In December, when ICC prosecutor Karim Khan went to Israel for a three-day visit, Israel did not allow him to even enter Gaza.

Palestinian officials, victims and legal scholars told the media that Khan showed little interest in investigating Israel. Khan said his visit was not investigative and his statement to the media made little mention of the evidence against Israel. However, while addressing the October 7 attacks by Hamas, Khan took a sharper line, condemning the “serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity”.

Triestino Mariniello, who is part of the legal team representing Gaza before the ICC, noted in an article last month that while it took Khan only one year to identify solid cases in the Ukraine conflict, the ICC is yet to issue a single warrant or summons over the Israel-Palestine situation since his swearing-in in June, 2021, and the inheritance of an unfinished probe.

“A few things suggest that the Palestine situation has not been a priority for Khan before October 2023. It seems that no ICC investigator has ever visited Israel or the Palestinian territory. A further signal of the Court’s paralysis in the Palestine situation is the allocation of resources (contra, see here): the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) assigned no funds to the Palestine situation in 2022 (the budget was finalised on 16 August 2021). In 2023, Khan allocated the lowest budget (944.1 thousands of euros) among all active investigations to the Palestine investigation (one fifth of the budget of 4,499.8 thousands of euros to Ukraine for which the Prosecutor had called upon states to provide voluntary contributions; (almost) one fourth of the budget of 3.506,3 thousands of euros to Sudan; and half of the budget of 1,917.8 thousands of euros to the Philippines ). The way in which the Prosecutor had approached the Palestine investigation appears to be in sharp contrast to the Ukraine situation,” Mariniello wrote. 

Paper tigers

Israel’s allies come across as more circumspect than Khan. 

In 2021, Boris Johnson had hit out at the ICC’s delayed decision to look into the situation in Gaza saying that an international court should not investigate Britain’s friends. 

Amid the recent flare-up, the Joe Biden administration in the US has seemed clear that an American ally shouldn’t be criticised. For example, amid the ICJ trial, the US national security council spokesperson referred to South Africa’s case as “meritless” and “completely without any basis in fact”.

The US, which in other cases involving its citizens uses all platforms available to respond to the “enemy”, has taken a different approach when it comes to Israel – it tried to stop Al Jazeera from approaching the ICC with Shireen Abu Akleh’s case.

The situation in Gaza has only given credence to scepticism about global bodies being toothless tigers tamed by big geopolitical players. For months, one general assembly resolution after another has been cleared with a loud majority, but only to be ignored by the Security Council. The Secretary General, the UNRWA, UN Human Rights Commissioner and special rapporteurs, UN Women, and the Red Cross have issued several appeals for peace, but they have all seemed to fall on deaf ears.

In case an ICC or ICJ ruling implicates Israel in future, the US, UK and Germany, which are among the most vehement supporters of Israel’s right to defend itself, will have to deal with difficult questions surrounding their complicity in the killings of journalists or genocidal acts. Read this to understand why.

But what if the ICC summons an Israeli minister or army officer over allegations of war crimes?

There have been instances where States parties have failed to fulfil the obligation to execute the ICC’s decisions. For example, when two arrest warrants were issued in 2009 and 2010 against Omar Al-Bashir, then president of Sudan. He was accused of war crimes and genocide, but comfortably travelled to several ICC member countries, without being worried – some countries cited the principle of the immunity of heads of state in office.

Palestinian journalists try to hold on

According to Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, “journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this heart-breaking conflict. Those in Gaza, in particular, have paid, and continue to pay, an unprecedented toll and face exponential threats. Many have lost colleagues, families, and media facilities, and have fled seeking safety when there is no safe haven or exit.”

The most visible example of this courage is Al Jazeera’s Gaza chief Wael Al-Dahdouh, who is receiving treatment in Qatar. His career has emerged as a testament to the perils faced by Palestinian journalists trying to report on the conflict. After his wife, son, daughter, and grandson were killed in October, he returned to his work the same day, determined to tell the stories of Palestinian displacement and Israel’s brutal bombings. Even after he was injured in December, he resumed reporting immediately.

After his eldest son Hamza’s death, he seemed slightly resigned. “Hamza was everything to me, the eldest boy, he was the soul of my soul… these are the tears of parting and loss, the tears of humanity,” he said. But he resumed reporting hours later.

This week, Wael wrote a message mourning his family on Instagram, but added that he will continue to be “patient”.

Unlike Wael, who has decades of experience in journalism, the war has compelled many Palestinians to convey the truths on the ground by turning into citizen journalists overnight.

For example, the nine-year-old Lama Jamous, who is documenting the challenges of being displaced in Gaza on social media – over 11,500 children have been killed in the region so far.

None of it is easy; not even leaving. 

Plestia Alaqad, whose number of Instagram followers grew from 4,000 before October 7 to 4.2 million later, has now left Gaza for Melbourne amid fears for her family. But she is feeling guilty about leaving and stays up looking at her phone.

“I don’t want people just to see us as news,”  she told The Guardian.

“A couple of days ago, I was the news, I was there covering the news. And now I’m just … refreshing, refreshing each page trying to know anything, trying to see if my friends are alive or dead.”

The author is an Arabic writer with an interest in West Asian politics.

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