Sunday Timeschief foreign correspondent Christina Lamb has called for the creation of an independent international task force to investigate crimes against journalists.
Lamb warned journalists are now being deliberately targeted in war zones and are being put at risk by wearing the flak jackets emblazoned with the word “press” which are meant to protect them.
She said she is “convinced that press freedom and journalism are under threat more than at any time in my almost four decades of reporting”.
Lamb was speaking at a conference attended by war crimes prosecutors and police investigators in The Hague days after Lebanese newspaper journalist Amal Khalil was killed in an Israeli airstrike while sheltering after a previous attack.
Khalil’s killing, and the wounding of another journalist, has been labelled as a “deliberate and targeted” act perpetrated byIsrael, which denied it targeted journalists but said the incident was under review.
Lamb noted Khalil was “clearly identifiable as a journalist in her blue press jacket” and compared her death to the 86 journalists killed by Israeli forces inGazalast year.
Khalil previously claimed she had received a message in 2024 from an Israeli number threatening her and warning her to leave southern Lebanon. Themessage reportedly said: “We know where you are and we will reach you when the time comes… I suggest you flee to Qatar or somewhere else if you want to keep your head connected to your shoulders.”
Lamb said: “It shouldn’t need saying but let me say it: Journalists are civilians. Deliberately targeting them is a war crime.
“And yet, just as with sexual violence in conflict which I write about a lot, accountability is the exception not the rule.
“We take risks to shine a light on injustice and bring back stories of those who can’t. We are not saying we should be special, just treated as the civilians we are and left to do our job.”
Source: Press Gazette
