The Palestinian National Council (PNC) has condemned the savage massacre committed by the Israeli occupation forces against journalists at the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis on Monday, which killed a group of them while they were performing their professional, ethical, and humanitarian duty to report the truth.



The Israeli occupation's deliberate act of murdering the journalists and targeting them directly represents a clear war crime and an egregious encroachment upon the freedom of opinion and expression, as well as a desperate attempt to obscure facts and cloak its crimes against the Palestinian people, said President of the PNC Rawhi Fattouh.



Fattouh highlighted that the number of journalists who have been killed since the start of the aggression has risen to over 244, which is an unprecedented record in the history of international conflicts, laying bare the unprecedented savagery towards the protectors of truth and its witnesses.



He stressed that the objective is to practice genocide and ethnic cleansing without having individuals to bear witness to these acts and document them to the world.



These crimes represent a repeated war crime and a heinous breach of international law and international conventions that provide full protection for journalists in conflict zones, particularly Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which guarantees full protection to journalists in conflict zones, Fattouh highlighted. Fattouh further appealed to the international community, the United Nations, and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) to uphold their responsibilities in halting these crimes and holding the Israeli occupation responsible for its crimes, in addition to providing immediate protection for journalists and those operating in the media and humanitarian fields.