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00:00The killing this week in the Gaza Strip of a freelance journalist working for Al Jazeera
00:05brings to 173 the number of reporters killed since Israel's invasion in late 2023.
00:14Israel which refuses to let foreign reporters into Gaza.
00:19With us Laurent Richart, co-founder of the investigative
00:23unit Forbidden Stories.
00:24Thanks for being with us.
00:25Thank you for having me.
00:26And you've been working on this issue of the targeting of journalists.
00:30Yeah, it's an entire team with 12 news organizations coordinated by Forbidden Stories where
00:37the goal was to investigate how some journalists were targeted by the Israeli army.
00:42So not just collateral damage but actually targeted.
00:45Yeah, actually we see a kind of pattern from the Israeli army in the way journalists lost
00:52their life.
00:53Some of them have been killed by drones as others were killed by some snipers.
01:00And so for some of those cases we were investigating in what kind of condition specifically they
01:09were killed.
01:10And what we are revealing today that we are revealing for instance the case of Fadi Al
01:16was in reporting from an area where the combat was not supposed to happen.
01:23It was not in what we call the evacuation area, evacuation zone.
01:28And he was shot and now he's paralyzed.
01:32And so we investigate using modelization, using 3D, using open source investigation,
01:39using satellite pictures, drone pictures.
01:41And we were able to identify from where the shooting happened and a series of elements
01:50and evidences convincing and we can tell with a high degree of confidence that it was really
01:57targeted.
01:58He was really targeted and you're saying there's lots of instances of that among those 173.
02:04Yeah, what we see as well that it's a global war against access to information.
02:10You can see journalists being targeted but as well the newsroom being targeted.
02:15You can see as well some shutdown where you don't have any kind of access to information.
02:20You can see as well how some journalists using drones have been systematically targeted as
02:25well.
02:26You can see as well many tactics to prevent to be sued by international criminal court
02:34as well from the Ministry of Justice of Israel.
02:37So it's a global way from the government of Israel not to be prosecuted in that kind
02:44of war crimes.
02:45So what is the Israeli government telling you when it comes to A, not letting in foreign
02:51reporters?
02:52B, the rules of engagement when it comes to things like drones?
02:56And C, the accusation that they're actually actively targeting journalists?
03:03On the point C they say, yeah, this is fake.
03:07We are not targeting journalists.
03:10And what we can see as well that every time a journalist is killed by the Israeli army
03:14they will immediately say publicly that that journalist was a terrorist.
03:19But without really providing evidence to support that kind of claims.
03:24And we have seen that many times.
03:27That's a kind of pattern.
03:29On the fact that they don't want foreign reporters to come, they explain that for safety
03:34reasons and because of the war they don't want to see any kind of other civilians entering
03:40the area.
03:41So this is why we need a kind of collaboration like that with many newsrooms involved.
03:49Not only from abroad but as well we were working with some journalists in Palestine.
03:55We were collecting a lot of witnesses from the ground.
03:59And what have been some of the reactions internationally?
04:04Well, as you know, the situation globally is that there is a war in Ukraine.
04:10There is a war in Gaza.
04:11There are many things happening in the U.S.
04:15So what we can see that there is a high level of impunity globally when we talk about crimes
04:21committed against reporters.
04:23When it goes to the Gaza situation, more than 170 journalists have been killed since
04:29October 23.
04:30And the level of accountability is extremely low.
04:33We don't have any kind of answer or investigation.
04:37So the international reaction is sometimes strong.
04:43It depends country by country.
04:45But as a journalist, and I'm leading an organization of journalists, the thing we need is to go
04:51on the field and to be able to report from the field for the public interest.
04:56The journalists are survivors among the survivors here.
04:59They are here to tell the stories of what is happening.
05:03They try to use their drone to show the damages of the war.
05:09And if you don't have any kind of witnesses, if you don't have any kind of journalists
05:12in a war, in a conflict, then there is a big risk that you can see a lot of war crimes
05:18being multiplied with impunity.
05:20And this is why journalism is so crucial in a period of conflict.
05:25Laurent Richard, your report is available on the Forbidden Stories website.
05:30Many thanks for being with us here on France 24.
05:33Thank you so much.