Committee to Protect Journalists Whitewashes the Murders of Israeli Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists has been whitewashing the murders of Israeli journalists on October 7 by Hamas terrorists. More on this can be found here: “Committee to Protect Journalists Protects Hamas Murderers of Israeli Journalists,” by Tamar Sternthal, CAMERA, November 15, 2023:

…His colleague, Ynet photographer Roee Idan, was outside his Kfar Aza home holding his three-year-old daughter when Hamas terrorists shot him and kidnapped the toddler. His wife Smadar was murdered inside the family home and his two surviving children (ages 6 and 9) spent more than 12 hours in a storage closet before Israeli forces managed to rescue them….

Yet, as of this writing, nearly a full four weeks after Ynet reported in details about Hamas’ murder of Idan in his own yard, CJP inexplicably continues to claim that Idan was killed in an “unknown” location by “unknown fire” while on “dangerous assignment.”…

Roee Idan was not “on a dangerous assignment” when he was murdered. He was on no assignment at all, but decided on his own to take photos of the paragliding terrorists, the rockets fired from Gaza, the Iron Dome interceptions, all while still unaware that 3000 terrorists were crossing the border and would soon be in his kibbutz. He was shot down while standing outside of his house, holding his three-year-old daughter when the terrorists arrived. They then murdered his wife Smadar, who had been inside he house, and kidnapped the three-year-old.

For nearly four weeks the CJP has been supplied with all the necessary information about the death of Roee Idan. First, the location where he was murdered is not “unknown”; he was shot standing right outside his house in Kfar Aza. His wife was killed inside the house. Second, he was killed not by “unknown fire,” but by Hamas terrorists who proudly took selfies of themselves murdering Israelis. Third, he was not on “a dangerous assignment.”

Indeed, CJP’s post about Idan was entered — or at least updated — Oct. 20, after Ynet reported that the details of Idan’s murder. CJP’s deceptive post states:

On October 20, Israeli journalist Roee Idan was declared dead after his body was recovered, according to The Times of Israel and the International Federation of Journalists”. Idan, a photographer for the Israeli newspaper Ynet, was initially reported missing when his wife and daughter were killed in a Hamas attack on October 7 on Kibbutz Kfar Aza. CPJ confirmed that he was working on the day of the attack.

The CJP post was “deceptive” because Idan was not “working” in any formal sense; he had not been assigned to cover a terrorist intrusion. Hearing the rockets and seeing the paragliders, he began on his own to take photographs of both incoming rockets and paragliders floating into Kfar Aza from Gaza.

CPJ’s database of journalists killed in the Israel-Gaza war is based on preliminary reporting from the region and will be updated as more information becomes available. You can find a current list of journalist casualties in the war here.

Idan followed his journalistic instinct to record the attacks in his own community, and then immediately returned home to protect himself and his family. “CPJ confirmed that he was working on the day of the attack,” writes CPJ, as if that piece of information negates the fact that he was murdered in his own yard while holding his daughter, information that the organizations conceals from readers….

His work that morning was not an “assignment,” but his own idea; he heard the incoming rockets being intercepted by Iron Dome, saw the paragliders fly into Israel from Gaza, and started snapping away. He had not been ordered to take on a “dangerous assignment,” and in fact, he was murdered while standing on the lawn in front of his house, holding his three-year-old, after he had stopped taking photographs.

His wife, who stayed home throughout the attack, along with 48 other Kfar Aza residents, met the same exact fate as her journalist husband who briefly ran outside to document events. Just like them, Roee Idan was murdered by Hamas terrorists because he was an Israeli. Not because he was working as a journalist. Similarly, Idan’s three-year-old daughter Avigail was kidnapped (not, as far as is known, murdered, per CPJ) by Hamas terrorists because she is Israeli, and not because her father was “working on the day of the attack.”

CPJ likewise covered up the murder of two female journalists whose young lives were brutally cut short as they were enjoying themselves at the overnight Supernovaova rave party where Hamas terrorists gunned down more than 250 partying youth and carried out rapes and other atrocities. About Shai Regev, whom CPJ falsely claimed was “killed” by a “political group” while she was “on dangerous assignment,” CPJ added:

Shai Regev, an Israeli editor for TMI, the gossip and entertainment news section of the Hebrew-language daily newspaper Maariv, was killed during a Hamas attack on Israel. The confirmation of Regev’s death came after she was reported missing for six days, with the announcement made to her family, as reported by Maariv and The Times of Israel….

Shai Regev was not on a “dangerous assignment” when she was murdered; she was attending a rave party. In her case, too, the CPJ claimed she was killed by a “political group.” But no one of sense could call the people who burned babies alive, beheaded children, tortured and raped young girls, gouged out eyes, cut off genitalia, sliced off breasts. murdered children in front of their children and their parents in front of their children — members of a “political group.”