> According to Reporters Without Borders' tally, at least 105 [journalists] have so far [since October 7th] been killed by Israeli airstrikes, rockets and gunfire, including at least 22 in the course of their work.
Were they killed "for sport" (implying deliberate targetting)? With almost 35,000 dead, 105 journalists is about 0.3% of that. Seems about right as "normal" casualties.
Look, I have a lot of criticism about not just this war, but how the Palestinian people have been treated over the last 60 years. But you can't just say things like "they're targetting journalists for sport" and then pivot to this type of stuff when pressed.
I’m not the person you were originally interacting with, so I wasn’t “pivoting” - sorry to cause confusion!
There’s not really any doubt that the press feel they’re targeted, I think some have gone on the record about it. I don’t know how well we can really test such a claim absent the cooperation of the IDF, which will never happen.
My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic. If your army has enough xenophobic misanthropes and incompetent reservists who are willing to shoot at anything not wearing their uniform, the notion of a class of people being “targeted” is rendered redundant.
The Hebrew-speaking hostages who were killed while trying to surrender were just one aspect of this conflict that someone writing a really dark antiwar comedy might have come up with.
> My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic.
Well it's not "academic" if it occupies quite a bit of the public debate, and it's also not helpful if it's actually fairly easy to debunk, and is just fuel for the "they will make up anything to make us look bad" line. All of that energy can and should be spent elsewhere.
For those who aren't familiar with this, after the IDF shot American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to death, Israeli security forces attacked her funeral procession. There's a video of Israeli soldiers physically beating the pall bearers, and the coffin nearly falling to the ground.[0]
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/....