“World Press Freedom Day stands as a solemn reminder of the courage of those journalists, photographers and videographers who, over the past two years, risked their lives to expose the brutality of colonial genocide of Palestinians,” Esmaeil Baqaei said in a post on his X account on Saturday.
“We honor over 200 media workers who fell victim to the genocidal campaign they sought to unveil,” he added.
“They were targeted because they felt obliged to document the extreme pain and suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and broadcast the atrocities of apartheid occupying regime,” the spokesman stated.
“The United States and other supporters, enablers and apologists of Israeli atrocities are complicit in those heinous crimes and shall be held accountable too,” he said.
The Israeli regime’s war on Gaza has killed over 230 journalists –an average of 13 per month– making it the deadliest conflict for media workers ever recorded, according to a report by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs’ Costs of War project published on April 1.
More journalists have been killed in Gaza than in both world wars, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia and the United States war in Afghanistan combined, the report found.
The Zionist regime’s war on Gaza has killed at least 52,495 Palestinians and wounded 118,366 since October 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The Gaza Government Media Office updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
Tasnim