GAZA CITY, Palestine

Israel has destroyed the independent Press House building west of Gaza City, an incubator for journalists and media persons, according to local media reports.

The destruction of the building of this media institution came at a time as the Israeli army continued to directly target journalists and media professionals in the Gaza Strip.

According to local and international human rights organizations, targeting media institutions and journalists aims to remove the Palestinian narrative from the forefront.

The partial Israeli withdrawal, at dawn on Saturday, from several areas west of Gaza City revealed the destruction that affected the Press House.

The Press House is an independent, non-profit, non-representative Palestinian media institution.

It was established in 2013 at the initiative of “a group of independent journalists in an effort to promote freedom of opinion and expression, support independent media, and provide legal protection for journalists in Palestine,” as stated on its website.

During its work, the institution sought to “provide an incubator for independent Palestinian media to promote freedom of opinion and expression by developing the professional performance of journalists in Palestine, in addition to establishing a network of media professionals, intellectuals, writers, and defenders of media freedom and human rights.”

In November, the Israeli army killed the director of the Press House, Bilal Jadallah, by directly bombing his vehicle in Gaza City.

Since the beginning of the Israeli war on Oct. 7, Israel has killed 124 journalists and media professionals in different areas of the Gaza Strip, according to data from the government media office in Gaza.

The number of journalists who lost their lives as a result of the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza exceeded the total number of journalists killed in the world in 2021 and 2022.

Israel launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7 that has killed nearly 28,000 Palestinians following a surprise Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the initial attack.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while much of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi