The British newspaper "The Independent" was surprised by the United Nations attention to the murder of Turkish journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the killing of Palestinian journalist Yasser Murtaja during the return marches in the Gaza Strip.
The newspaper published an article by writer Robert Fisk, asking why the world and officials are more interested in the case of Khashoggi´s assassination, while ignoring the killing of many other journalists such as the killing of journalist Yasser Murtaja by the Israelis in Gaza.
The UN commissioner on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Kalamard, recently arrived in Istanbul to oversee an independent international inquiry into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Kalamard arrived in Turkey four months after Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where she applied to the Saudi authorities to allow her to enter the crime scene.
He said that if we wanted to punish those responsible for the killing of journalists, we should put aside all the news published by Turkish newspapers on this issue.
In contrast to many, Morgan Stanley investment bank president James Gorman and Swiss President Ole Maurer seem keen to restore ties with Saudi Arabia.
The writer asked why the officials did not deal with the issues of the killing of other journalists with the same degree of interest as the case of Khashoggi, especially the case of Yasser Murtaja, according to the Arab site21.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Yasser is one of 15 reporters and crew shot dead by Israeli forces since 1992. The shooting of reporters seems routine in Gaza to the extent that television and Western newspapers are no longer bothering to record the suffering they are experiencing.
The writer said that just as the Saudis talked about Khashoggi´s relationship to terrorism, Israel spoke about the fictional ties of Gazan journalists to terrorism. In the case of Yasser Murtaja, they thought he was a Hamas agent .
According to the Associated Press, Murtaja was wearing a bullet-proof vest that read "Press" when he was hit by an Israeli sniper in his stomach during the border protests on 6 April 2018, 300 feet from the Gaza-Israel border. Nine other Palestinians were killed on the same day and 491 others were wounded after rubber bullets and tear gas canisters were fired.
While Khashoggi was a columnist for the Washington Post, Murtaja, who used an unmanned aerial vehicle during his report on Al Ain´s media production company, helped report to BBC and Jazeera. "Four years ago, Murtaji was beaten by a Hamas group for refusing to hand over the photo he had filmed, which is proof that he was not working for them," he said.
The UN investigator in Turkey on the heinous acts committed by Saudi Arabia is far from being fully investigated by the United Nations in Gaza over Palestinian journalists killed by Israel.
In 2008, Israel refused to cooperate with UN envoy Richard Goldstone, who came to conduct an investigation into the Gaza war. As for the case of Yasser Murtaja, the author does not believe that Agnes will travel to Gaza to investigate the stages of this crime.
The UN was aware of the death of Yasser Murtaja, and the staff of the human rights body has statistics on the number of civilian deaths, medical personnel and journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But most governments make do with promising to conduct investigations after each incident.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza appealed to the Israeli High Court to stop the killing of civilians, aid workers and journalists. "The killing of journalists is a violation of human rights and international law," said Al-Mezan´s director of communications, Mahmoud Abu Rahma, who was known and had nothing to do with Hamas.
After being shot, the Committee to Protect Journalists wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for an immediate investigation into the shooting of journalists covering demonstrations in the Gaza Strip. CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon wrote that the Israelis had appointed a dean to investigate Israeli forces´ practices with Palestinian demonstrators as well as another investigation into the killing of Yasser Murtaja.
In conclusion, the writer said that the world is waiting for Netanyahu´s response just as he waited with full confidence for the results of a fair and comprehensive investigation by the Saudis regarding the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, an inquiry ordered by the same Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom the CIA believes was the one who killed him.
The journalist Yasser Murtaja, during his coverage of the return marches, was shot by Israeli soldiers on 7 April 2018.
