CANADA
A long-serving Reuters photojournalist has resigned from the international news agency, accusing it and other Western media houses of enabling Israel’s systematic killing of journalists in Gaza.
The journalist, who has freelanced for Reuters across North America for eight years, said she could no longer work with the agency following what she described as “its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza.” Her work has previously appeared in global outlets including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and several European media houses.
The decision follows the killing of Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif, whose reporting for Reuters won a Pulitzer Prize. Al-Sharif, together with an Al-Jazeera crew, was killed in Gaza City on August 10. Reuters later published an Israeli military claim alleging Al-Sharif was a Hamas operative a claim the resigning journalist says was “entirely baseless” and part of a pattern of Western media amplifying Israeli propaganda.
On Tuesday morning, another Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital killed at least 20 people, including five journalists. Among them was Reuters cameraman Hossam Al-Masri. Witnesses said it was a “double tap” strike where an initial attack is followed by a second targeting rescuers, medics, and reporters.
“Every major outlet from the New York Times to the Washington Post, from AP to Reuters has served as a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda, sanitizing war crimes and abandoning their own colleagues,” the journalist said, citing U.S. investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill.
Media rights groups say more journalists have been killed in Gaza in the last two years than in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine combined.
Despite Al-Sharif’s international recognition, the journalist noted that Reuters failed to defend him even after Israeli forces openly threatened his life. “It did not compel them to report on his death honestly when he was hunted and killed weeks later,” he said.
The photojournalist said resigning from Reuters was an act of solidarity with Gaza-based reporters: “I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief. Whatever work I do going forward will be in honour of the courage and sacrifice of journalists in Gaza the bravest and best to ever live.”
