News- Middle East: The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) World Service has condemned Israel’s brutal assassination of six Palestinian journalists.

The IRIB said the crime is part of a “systematic campaign” aimed at “silencing the voice of truth” from the Gaza Strip amid the genocidal war by the occupying regime.

It released a statement on Monday, one day after Al Jazeera reporters Anas al-Sharif and Mohammad Qareqa, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Nofal, and Mo’men Aliwa, as well as Mohammad al-Khalidi, a journalist with the Sahat platform, were killed in a deliberate Israeli strike on their tent outside the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

"This criminal act is the continuation of a series of targeted attacks on media professionals in Gaza since October 7, 2023."

"It is not only an assault on the lives of defenseless individuals, but also an attack on truth, freedom of expression, and the fundamental right of people around the world to access independent news and hear the voices of the people who are being subjected to shameless and unprecedented crimes in the blatant genocide by the illegitimate Israeli regime in the blood-soaked Gaza Strip."

"The recent cowardly assassination is part of a systematic campaign aimed at silencing the voice of truth in Gaza and preventing the oppressed people's narrative from reaching global public opinion."

The Israeli military shamelessly admitted carrying out the assassination, claiming Anas al-Sharif was a member of the Hamas resistance group, an accusation that Al Jazeera and Sharif had previously rejected as baseless.

The IRIB World Service said attacking journalists constitutes a war crime that is punishable under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

However, it added, the Zionist regime, which enjoys political support and unlawful immunity granted by certain Western powers, has for years pursued a policy of physically eliminating journalists, and blatantly trampling all norms and rules of international humanitarian law.

"Targeting journalists is a grave violation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

It also called on the United Nations, the Human Rights Council, the ICC, and organizations defending journalists' rights to investigate the recent Israeli crime decisively and without double standards, and to prosecute both its perpetrators and masterminds.

It further expressed deep sympathy with the bereaved families of the assassinated journalists.

Meanwhile, the IRIB World Service vowed to the families of the 238 martyred journalists in the Gaza Strip and its resilient people that it will use all its capacities to cover the realities and expose the Zionist regime’s atrocities.

Israel unleashed its brutal campaign in Gaza on October 7, 2023, after Hamas carried out its historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Tel Aviv regime has so far failed to achieve its declared objectives of eliminating Hamas and freeing all captives in Gaza.

Israel has killed 61,499 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 153,575 others since, accoring to the health ministry of Gaza.

The August 10 attack brought to 238 the total number of journalists killed by Israel in Gaza since the beginning of the genocide, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

Israel has a record of killing journalists in its wars.

In its June aggression against Iran, the regime targeted the IRIB news department building in violation of international humanitarian law.

Source: Press TV