Barely two weeks since the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) killed 28-year-old Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif, still more journalists have been killed in Gaza. Mariam Riad Dagga and her colleagues were at Nasser hospital covering an air strike that occurred minutes before they reached the wreckage of the hospital, when another air strike, described as a “double-tap”, killed them while on air.

I learn about these deaths, but what I care about are the details of their lives: I cannot imagine what it means to write your will at 23, to leave a letter for your son to read when he grows up in case you are murdered at work. I watch the video of Anas Al Sharif’s daughter telling him that she wants to be a journalist like him when she grows up. I read the angry plea Mariam’s friend Eman Hillis wrote after the most recent air strike – stop mourning Palestinian journalists, act, stop Israel from murdering them.

You might ask, why should journalists be considered a protected category as civilians, when no one in Gaza is safe? The question to ask instead is why are journalists a targeted category? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the attack at Nasser hospital as "a tragic mishap" and said that Israel values the work of "journalists, health workers and all citizens". The IDF insists it does not deliberately target civilians — but in the last two years, the number of journalists that have been killed in Gaza has crossed 200, a higher number of deaths than the combined toll of journalists from the war in Yugoslavia, in Vietnam, the US’s war on Afghanistan and both World Wars.

As of a week ago, 972 has reported on the Israeli military’s special “Legitimisation Cell”, whose role it is to to identify Gaza-based journalists it could portray as undercover Hamas operatives, in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel’s killing of reporters. The killing of Palestinian journalists, along with restrictions on foreign reporters entering Gaza unless accompanied by the IDF (under controlled access), is a clear sign that we are not meant to see what is happening on the ground. As Palestinian journalist Plestia Alaqad has said elsewhere — what I’m afraid of is not the footage coming out of Gaza, what truly scares me are the stories we never get to hear.

Nishita Jha is a writer and illustrator based in London. Click here to subscribe to her weekly illustrated newsletter.

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