US Muslim advocacy group calls on media to condemn attacks on Gaza journalists

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on U.S. media outlets to condemn Israeli attacks on journalists in the Gaza Strip, following the deaths of two more reporters in recent strikes.

In a statement released after journalists Husam Shebat and Mohammed Mansour were killed in Israeli attacks, CAIR emphasized that these journalists were targeted and killed for shedding light on what they described as Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

“The lives of Muslim, Palestinian, or non-white journalists should be as important to media organizations as those of white, European, or Christian journalists,” the council stated.

Shebat, who worked as a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher, was killed in an Israeli attack in northern Gaza yesterday.

Mansour, a reporter for Palestine al-Youm television, lost his life in an attack on the Batn Semin area in western Khan Yunis.

With these latest casualties, the death toll among journalists in Gaza since October 2023 has risen to 208.

During its military operations between Oct. 7, 2023, and the cease-fire established on Jan. 19, 2025, the Israeli army published maps with evacuation instructions for Palestinians within Gaza. According to figures shared by the U.N., approximately 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians were displaced at least once due to Israeli attacks.

The Israeli military broke the Jan. 19 cease-fire when it launched renewed intense attacks on the Gaza Strip on the morning of March 18.