By Desmond Nleya
Over the weekend, five Al Jazeera staff members, including correspondent Anas al-Sharif, were killed in Gaza. Their deaths are not isolated incidents but part of an alarming and bloody trend: journalists being targeted and silenced, reportedly by Israeli forces, for doing their jobs. These killings add to a devastating toll that has now surpassed 250 journalists slain since the war began — a war that some still dare to describe as “self-defence.”
What should be clear by now is that this is no longer just a war between two sides. It has evolved into a systematic assault on truth itself, where cameras and microphones are treated as weapons and those who wield them are executed in cold blood. Women and children are being starved. Entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble. And those courageous enough to bear witness and alert the world are being hunted down.
The hypocrisy is staggering. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes present themselves as defenders of human rights and global security — the self-appointed policemen of the world. Yet they continue to violate the very principles they claim to uphold. Even more troubling, powerful nations, particularly in the West, remain steadfast in their political and military support, refusing to call these acts by their true name: war crimes.
Some nations, like South Africa, have stood up to this injustice, taking Israel head-on in international legal forums and demanding accountability. But instead of being applauded, they are sidelined and smeared for doing the morally right thing: standing for humanity.
The United Nations Charter, along with countless human rights treaties, enshrines the right to freedom of the press. It proclaims the protection of civilians, the prevention of genocide, and the duty to act against crimes against humanity. Yet, where is the United Nations now? What is its role when children, mothers, and unarmed journalists are slaughtered without consequence? How many more bodies must be buried before the world body wakes from its paralysis and takes decisive action?
The silence of the international community is not just complicity; it is an endorsement. Each day without action emboldens war criminals and deepens the culture of impunity. If the United Nations still claims to be the guardian of peace and human rights, it must prove it — not with words, but with urgent, enforceable measures to end this slaughter and hold the perpetrators accountable.
The murder of journalists is an attack on truth itself. Without them, the world sees only the version of events dictated by those in power. In Gaza, that truth is being buried along with the people who risk everything to tell it. The world owes them more than tributes and memorials. It owes them justice.
If the United Nations cannot protect those who speak for the voiceless, then its founding principles are nothing more than empty promises.
