About a hundred protesters gathered Tuesday evening at the former offices of the San Diego Union-Tribune in order to demand that the newspaper formally condemn the killings of an Al Jazeera reporting team in Gaza this week.
The location of the protest was largely symbolic, as the Union-Tribune no longer has an official office downtown.
Journalist Anas al-Sharif and several other colleagues were killed in an Israeli attack that hit a tent housing press in Gaza City. The attack took place late Sunday outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.
Al-Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal were killed, as well as freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi and cameraman Momen Aliwa.
Tuesday’s protest was organized by the San Diego for Palestine Coalition, a contingent of local advocacy organizations such as the Palestinian Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, among others.
Advocates organized the demonstration amid Israel’s impending ground invasion of Gaza City, which activists say has led to an increase in deliberate, targeted attacks on journalists reporting on the ground in Gaza.
The Israeli military has claimed that al-Sharif led a Hamas cell, an allegation that the journalist had repeatedly denied as baseless.
However, advocates and journalists say that al-Sharif’s reporting is what made him the target of Israel’s attacks, specifically after the reporter cried on air while reporting on mass starvation in the territory.
Outside the former U-T building at the corner of Seventh Avenue and B Street, protestors waved Palestinian flags and carried banners as various speakers took to the square to condemn the killings of Anas al-Sharif and hundreds of other journalists in Gaza.
“Over the past two years, we have witnessed a relentless, escalating genocide. Every single day we have seen slaughter,” said a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement’s San Diego Chapter who introduced herself as Farida. “We have seen the lowest points of humanity, as children, pregnant women, teachers, educators, and journalists, are murdered in Gaza.”
Farida also singled out the Union-Tribune for what she called “engineering consent” of Israel’s nearly two-year-long siege of Gaza through soft and passive coverage. The war has killed at least 62,614 people, including 17,492 children, since the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Al Jazeera.
“We stand here outside this building to tell the San Diego Union-Tribune that this is not just an Israeli genocide, it is a global genocide,” Farida said. “Every single nation and corporation that has turned a blind eye and allowed this massacre to continue for nearly two years is complicit.”
Israel’s war on Gaza has been the deadliest conflict in history ever recorded for journalists. Over the past 22 months, at least 270 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza.
According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, more journalists have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, than in the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, the Yugoslav Wars, and the U.S. war in Afghanistan combined.
Those grim statistics were not lost on those attending the rally, who said that San Diego’s proximity to the U.S. military and its various auxiliary industries tied to the armed forces makes it impossible to turn a blind eye to the U.S. involvement.
“In Palestine, putting on a press vest is essentially a metaphor for putting on a funeral cloth,” said Teresa Ortega, an organizer from City Heights who came out to show her solidarity with Palestinian journalists.
“This is a war crime, and we need to protect journalists so they can deliver the truth. The only reason why the truth would be buried is if there is something to hide.”
Reverend RJ Lucchesi also voiced his discontent for what he believes is a failure of Western news media, both at the local and national levels.
“Legacy media has been completely complicit in this genocide, from day one, including the Union-Tribune. You only hear one side of this genocide, and it’s not on the side of liberation, justice, or the side of the people,” Lucchesi said.
“The Union-Tribune is completely complicit in all that. They haven’t platformed any pro-Palestine voices.”
Last spring, the paper came under scrutiny after it removed an op-ed written by a 21-year-old UCSD anthropology major and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace who had been invited by its opinion board to contribute a piece sharing the perspectives of Jewish students in support of Palestinians. After community backlash, the op-ed was reinstated a week later on its website, but accusations of bias still persist.
Jewish Voice for Peace also released the following statement referencing last Spring’s removal and calling on the Union-Tribune to condemn the act of targeting press.
“As Jews and people of conscience, we know that media institutions like the Union-Tribune are complicit in Israel’s genocidal war machine. The UT silences local Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish voices, including those from our Jewish Voice for Peace chapter.
“In the wake of Israel’s latest murder of five Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza, who were bravely broadcasting the realities of life under genocidal siege, we continue to call on the Union-Tribune to recognize the humanity of Palestinians, report accurately on Israel’s war crimes, and call for an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
After nearly two hours of chants and speeches, Tuesday’s demonstration drew to a somber close as Farida once again took to the mic to address the crowd.
“We must reflect and think long and hard about the lies that this violent settler colony has tried to put forth,” she said. “Framing this father, this journalist, this husband, this Palestinian as a ‘terrorist’. But we know where the real terrorism lies. And it is not in the innocent fathers, mothers, children, doctors, journalists, civilians, and heroes. Anas was a hero, and we refuse to forget him.”
The U-T has not yet responded to a request for comment.
