BELGRADE, Serbia

Bosnian and Croatian journalists gathered Monday in the capitals of Sarajevo and Zagreb to pay tribute to their colleagues killed in Israeli attacks in Palestine.

The tribute was organized as part of a protest staged by representatives of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) operating in the UK and Ireland and the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate (PJS) simultaneously in Brussels.

Hundreds of journalists lit candles and observed a minute of silence before calling for a cease-fire.

Bosnian journalist Borka Rudic said crimes against journalists are unacceptable and they mourn equally for all colleagues who were killed while reporting from the Gaza Strip.

"Today, we are sending a message from Bosnia and Herzegovina that crimes against journalists are inadmissible. Journalism is a public good and journalists must have minimum security conditions, regardless of whether they are reporting from the center of Sarajevo today or from the war zone of the Gaza Strip," Rudic said at the gathering.

Croatian journalist associations joined the global appeal to stop the killing of journalists and civilians and the bloodshed in Gaza.

According to the International Federation of Journalists, at least 99 journalists have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023 in Gaza.

Tensions have been running high across the occupied West Bank since Israel launched a deadly military offensive against the Gaza Strip following an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in which Israel says 1,200 Israelis were killed.

At least 27,478 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 66,835 others injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.