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The Qatar Press Center condemns the assassination of Palestinian journalist Muhammad Abu Sharia

Doha - July 2, 2024:

Palestinian journalist Muhammad Mahmoud Abu Sharia was martyred as a result of his wounds he sustained two days ago when the occupation targeted the vicinity of his house in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in southern Gaza, bringing the number of journalist martyrs to 153 since the start of the aggression against the Gaza Strip about 9 months ago. Abu Sharia was managing the editorial department at Shams News Agency, one of the Palestinian news agencies operating in the Gaza Strip. The Qatar Press Center renews its condemnation of the Israeli occupation forces targeting journalists in Gaza with killing and abuse, the latest of which was the assassination of journalist Muhammad Mahmoud Abu Sharia. The Center confirms that the Israeli army’s targeting of journalists’ homes and their locations inside Gaza is a blatant violation of international law and a heinous crime to silence free media and obstruct its transmission of the truth to the world. The Center denounces the continued Israeli occupation, which pursues a clear policy of arresting and killing journalists in Gaza and the West Bank, to hide the genocidal massacres committed by Israel against civilians, and to prevent media professionals from revealing the truth to the world. The Center calls on the international community to condemn the targeting of journalists in Gaza with killing, arrest, and intimidation, and to work to release male and female detainees who are languishing in Israeli prisons under compelling conditions that deprive them of the most basic prisoners’ rights stipulated in international laws and conventions. The government media office in Gaza said in a statement, “The number of journalist martyrs has risen to 153 male and female journalists since the start of the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, after the ascension of the martyr journalist colleague Muhammad Mahmoud Abu Sharia, a journalist at Shams News Media Agency. Data and statistics from the International Committee to Protect Journalists (a New York-based non-governmental organization) show that the war on Gaza has become “the bloodiest for journalists” since the committee began documenting the killings of journalists around the world in 1992. The International Center for Journalists (a non-governmental organization based in Washington) announced in February that the war on Gaza witnessed the highest levels of violence against journalists in 30 years, and called on Israel to stop killing journalists and investigate incidents of their killing at the hands of its forces.