The killing of Dahdouh came after Israel killed his mother, brother, sister, and nephew on October 25, 2023.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has filed its third complaint with the International Criminal Court over Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip against nine journalists, including slain Al Jazeera producer Hamza Dahdouh.

“Impunity endangers journalists not only in Palestine but also throughout the world. Those who kill journalists are attacking the public’s right to information, which is even more essential in times of conflict,” Antoine Bernard, RSF’s advocacy and assistance director, said.

“RSF will continue to work to this end, in solidarity with Gaza’s reporters,” he added.

The rights organisation also called for the investigation over the killing of more than 100 Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza since October 7, describing it as “an eradication of the Palestinian media”.

RSF announced on Monday that it has requested ICC prosecutor Karim Khan to investigate these crimes in accordance with Article 15 of the Rome Statute.

The latest RSF complaint comes days after the ICC prosecutor issued his first requests for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over the war on Gaza.

Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, was killed in a direct Israeli strike on the car he was in on January 7 in the southern city of Rafah.

Palestinian journalist Mustafa Thurayya, 30, who was in the same car, was also killed.

Israel’s military swiftly justified the attack, claiming it had “identified and struck a terrorist operating an aircraft that posed a threat” to its troops, referring to the drone Thurayya was using at the time.

An investigation by The Washington Post on March 19 dismissed Israel’s allegations after analysing footage from the drone’s recovered memory card.

Since October 7, Israel has killed at least 147 journalists covering the war, widely described as a genocide, on the besieged enclave. 

The journalists are among more than 36,000 killed by Israeli occupation forces since the start of the war.

Direct attacks on Al Jazeera

The killing of Dahdouh came two months after Israel killed his mother Amna, 15-year-old brother Mahmoud, seven-year-old sister Sham, and his infant nephew Adam on October 25.

Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, the elder Dahdouh, is now in Doha with the remaining members of his family.

On December 15, the veteran correspondent survived an Israeli attack in Khan Younis. His colleague and Al Jazeera’s cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, was injured in the attack, and was left to bleed out for six hours as Israeli forces continued to shell the area and prevented ambulances from reaching him. 

On February 13, Israeli occupation forces targeted Al Jazeera’s correspondent Ismail Abu Omar and cameraman Ahmed Mattar with an air strike in northern Rafah. Abu Omar is currently in Doha for treatment after his leg was amputated.

The following month, on March 18, Israeli forces detained and beat up Al Jazeera’s correspondent Ismail Alghoul during the deadly raid on the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which used to be the largest medical compound in the Strip. Alghoul managed to escape after 12 hours.

Israel’s targeting of Al Jazeera’s journalists and their families have been a staple in its nearly eight-month long offensive on the Gaza Strip.

On October 19, Israel killed 19 family members of Al Jazeera Arabic’s broadcast engineer, Mohamed Abu Al-Qumsan, during a massacre at the Jabalia refufee camp in northern Gaza.

Th followed another deadly Israeli attack on the same refugee camp on December 6, where 22 family members of Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent Moamen Al Sharafi were killed, including his elderly parents.

Less than a week later, Israeli forces killed the father of Al Jazeera’s Anas Al-Sharif in a strike in northern Gaza, two weeks after occupation forces threatened to target the correspondent. 

And on December 19, Israel killed Al Jazeera journalist Abdullah Alwan in an airstrike that targeted his family’s home in Jabalia.

Seeking to censor the Qatar-based network outside of Gaza, the Israeli government unanimously voted to shut down Al Jazeera’s local bureau on May 5. 

Al Jazeera had condemned the decision and described it as “a criminal act” that violated the right to access information.

Walid Omary, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Jerusalem, said at the time that the network recorded more than 50 attacks against its journalists since October 7.

Israel has long targeted Al Jazeera for its in-depth coverage of the crimes committed against Palestinians. 

In May 2022, Israel killed prominent Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as she was covering an Israeli raid in Jenin. An Israeli sniper shot and killed Abu Akleh, despite her wearing the blue protective vest marked as “press”.

Two years since the incident, Israel has not been held accountable for its crime, despite numerous investigations carried that had found the Israeli occupation forces to be the sole perpetrators of the killing.