Ms Amelia Evans:

I wanted to echo those two lines of thought. The first is that the very beginning of justice begins with finding out what really happened and some truth telling. In May 2023, before the conflict started, the CPJ put out a report called Deadly Pattern. It looked at how 20 journalists had been killed by the IDF over the past 22 years and there had not been a credible concluded investigation that resulted in accountability in any of those cases. What you have is a pattern of impunity. Therefore, there is nothing for us to believe that there is going to be any change. We have not seen any cases since 7 October where there have been those investigations, which means it is up to the international community to ensure there are transparent, effective, credible and independent investigations into all these targeted killings and atrocities that are occurring. We are talking about journalists but obviously the issue is much wider than that.

I also want to pick up the other thread of what it is we can do to try to prevent some of this in the future. One thing that has not been discussed yet, and it is important, is the use of emergency visas where there is conflict. We think about conflict as a journalist going in and being able to get access to documents, but there is also a time when journalists need to flee and to be able to get out safely. That cannot happen in Gaza right now. Journalists are dying in Gaza right now because they cannot get out. Therefore, this is not necessarily about solving this for the Gaza situation but more generally about Ireland looking at what it is doing in terms of offering emergency visas to journalists as human rights defenders when they are at risk. Very interesting work is coming out of the Media Freedom Coalition on this. There is the potential to lead the EU in this space. I would love to see Ireland picking up the mantle. I know it was terrific on Afghanistan and the evacuation that happened there. Ireland could formalise that and encourage other countries to do likewise. That would be another example of how we try to take action to prevent.