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Hundreds of mourners gathered Wednesday in Beirut to pay tribute to two journalists killed in an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon this week. Farah Omar and Rabih al-Maamari, who worked for the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Mayadeen, are among more than 50 journalists killed in the region since Israel's response to the October 7 Hamas terror attack.
Israel began its military campaign to wipe out Hamas after Hamas militants crossed into southern Israel on October 7. Israel said 1,200 people were killed and some 240 captives taken in the terror attack. Gaza health officials say more than 12,000 Palestinians, including at least 5,000 children, are confirmed killed in Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
As of early Wednesday, at least 53 journalists were among those casualties, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists or CPJ.
Of those, 46 are Palestinian, four Israeli and three Lebanese, the New York-based nonprofit said. CPJ has described the first month of the war as the deadliest for journalists since it started documenting media deaths in 1992.
The Israeli military said earlier in the conflict that journalism safety cannot be guaranteed.
Among the media casualties is Bilal Jadallah, who was director of the regional media freedom group Press House-Palestine. Jadallah died Sunday when a strike hit his vehicle.
A few days earlier his colleague Ahmed Fatima, a photojournalist for Egypt's Al Qahera News TV who also worked at Press House-Palestine, died in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
The Vienna-based International Press Institute or IPI says it attributes the majority of media deaths to Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
The CPJ paid tribute to Jadallah, who had partnered with them to help research and document attacks and press freedom violations in the region.
"[Jadallah's] killing leaves a gaping hole in the media landscape in Gaza, where journalists are in severe peril as they cover the war that has claimed the lives of dozens of their colleagues," said Sherif Mansour, who oversees CPJ Middle East research.
The Al-Mayadeen journalists were killed Tuesday about one and half kilometers from Lebanon's border with Israel.
Their media outlet accused Israel of targeting the news crew, and Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called the deaths an "assassination.
Israel's security cabinet had voted under emergency measures last week to block the Lebanese station, saying its broadcasts harm national security.
Reuters cited Israel's military as saying it is "aware of a claim regarding journalists ... who were killed as a result of [Israeli army] fire ...This is an area with active hostilities, where exchange of fire occur. Presence in the area is dangerous."
Al-Mayadeen is known to be pro-Palestinian and supportive of Iran's regional military alliance, which includes Hamas.
The station's deputy general manager Bahia Halawi told VOA last week she believes that steps to shutter the station are in retaliation for its critical coverage but added that Al-Mayadeen does not recognize Israel as a state.
Issues of perceived media bias have been present throughout the conflict. With foreign media largely unable to report from inside Gaza, they are relying on local journalists for information.
In a few isolated cases, networks had to end ties with freelancers after they were found to have posted pro-Hamas or anti-Israel content on social media. With limited independent foreign reporting in Gaza, media advocates have underscored the need to protect local journalists.
IPI's deputy director Scott Griffen said that "amid an information blackout and the barring of international journalists from entering Gaza, the world depends heavily on Palestinian journalists for coverage of the war."
"We stand behind all of them in their incredible courage," Griffen said in a statement this week, adding that Israel should allow the foreign press to enter and report freely from Gaza.
Some information for this story came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.