SIPTU representatives have called the targeted killing of five journalists working for Al Jazeera in Gaza “an attack on all media and the very basis of international law.”
SIPTU Services Divisional Organiser, Adrian Kane, said “at least five media workers were killed in this attack by a regime that is no longer even attempting to put a gloss of lies on its war crimes. On behalf of the many media workers who are members of our Union, we send condolences to the families and colleagues of correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Moamen Aliwa, and their assistant Mohammed Noufal.”
“Media workers, as of course do children and other non-combatants, are meant to be protected in a warzone,” he said.
“This targeted killing is another clear signal that the Israeli state no longer sees itself bound by any form of international law or indeed concepts of human morality. Despite this, for the US and for many EU countries, it still doesn’t deserve the pariah status of former apartheid South Africa, a state whose crimes, reprehensible as they were, never reached the extent of those that Israel carries out shamelessly in front of the world.”
He added, “the killing of these media workers is not an isolated incident; more than 200 have been murdered by the Israeli regime since it began its onslaught on Gaza. However, the manner in which it has attempted to justify this crime and the high profile, in particular of the journalist Anas al-Sharif, means this marks another stage in Israel’s own destruction of its legitimacy.”
“Our members, like most Irish people, overwhelmingly back the President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins’ call for the United Nations to wake up and seek to intervene by whatever means necessary to end what is not a war but a genocide of a proud, brave people.”