Al-Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif, left, and Mohammed Qreiqeh [Al Jazeera].

After sealing Gaza off from international reporters and blocking the world’s eyes from its genocide, Israel has moved to the next phase of its blackout strategy: hunting down Palestinian journalists inside Gaza. The goal is obvious: silence the last independent witnesses so that the genocide and starvation of an entire people proceed unseen, unrecorded, and unchecked by the global community.

The latest murder of two of Gaza’s most prominent TV correspondents, Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, as well as four other reporters in a tent housing journalists outside a Gaza hospital. This brings the number of Palestinian media workers killed by Israel to more than 230, the highest number killed in any world conflict.

This is not just in Gaza, let us not forget Israel’s cold-blooded murder of American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022 in the West Bank. Then, as now, Israel followed the same familiar playbook pattern: lie, deny, and distort the truth, before claiming, months later, that Abu Akleh was “accidentally” killed by a sniper’s bullet.

Israel bars international journalists from covering its atrocities, and when local reporters defy the blackout, silencing them becomes a calculated item on its “to-do list”: erasing truth-tellers and blinding the world. By this, Israel sends a clear message with every murder to those still breathing: report the truth and you will join them.

Political........

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