Israel has been accused of carrying out a "massacre" of journalists in Gaza in two separate reports from media freedom organizations this week that analyzed the deaths of reporters worldwide this year.
Israel denies it intentionally harms journalists, but admits that some have been killed in air strikes on military targets.
"We don't accept these figures. We don't believe they are correct," Israeli government spokesman David Mercer told a press conference Wednesday.
"We know that probably most journalists inside Gaza are operating under the auspices of Hamas, and until Hamas is destroyed, they will not be allowed to report freely," he said.
In some cases, Israel has accused reporters of being "terror operatives," such as when it killed a Gaza-based Al Jazeera staff journalist and freelancer in January – allegations condemned by the Qatari news network.
According to calculations from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published Thursday, the Israeli army killed 18 journalists as they were working this year – 16 in Gaza and two in Lebanon – around a third of the total worldwide of 54.
"Palestine is the most dangerous country for journalists, recording a higher death toll than any other country over the past five years," RSF said in its annual report, which covers data up to Dec. 1.
The organization has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for "war crimes committed against journalists by the Israeli army."
It said that in total "more than 145" journalists had been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since the start of the war there in October 2023, with 35 of them working at the time of their deaths.
RSF described the number of killings as "an unprecedented massacre."
With foreign reporters prevented from entering the territory and local reporters being deliberately targeted, Gaza was "a place where journalism itself is threatened with extinction," RSF said.
In a separate report published Tuesday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said that 104 journalists were killed worldwide in 2024, with more than half of them in Gaza.
The IFJ and RSF figures vary because of different methodologies used to calculate the tolls, but the IFJ used similar language to condemn Israel's military.
"The war in Gaza and Lebanon once again highlights the massacre suffered by Palestinian (55), Lebanese (6) and Syrian (1) media professionals, representing 60% of all journalists killed in 2024," the IFJ said.
Al Jazeera, which has been banned in Israel, says the Israeli military has been deliberately targeting its staff since the start of the war because of the channel's coverage.
'Under Review'
In Lebanon, the two deaths counted this year by RSF were caused by a October 25 Israeli strike on a tourism complex in the southern town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists working for Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.
Human Rights Watch condemned it as "apparent war crime." The Israeli army said it had targeted Hezbollah militants but said the strike was "under review."
No results have been published from a review promised over the killing of a Reuters journalist and the wounding of six other reporters, including two AFP staff in Lebanon in October 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists highlighted on the one-year anniversary of the attack.
An investigation by AFP and Reuters over that incident concluded that the journalists, who were all wearing helmets and bulletproof vests marked "Press" in an area without obvious militant activity, were targeted by Israeli tank fire.
RSF only records journalist deaths in its report if they have been "proven to be directly related to their professional activity."
Following the 16 deaths in Gaza, the deadliest countries for journalists in 2024 were Pakistan with seven deaths, followed by Bangladesh and Mexico with five each.
In 2023, the number of journalists killed worldwide stood at 45 in the same January-December period.