JOHANNESBURG – CANADIAN photojournalist Valerie Zink has resigned from Reuters after eight years as a freelance contributor, accusing the global news agency of “justifying and enabling” Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza.
Her resignation, announced in a Facebook post, came hours after an Israeli airstrike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed at least 20 people, including five journalists, according to local health authorities. The hospital was the largest medical facility in southern Gaza.
Zink alleged that Reuters and other Western media outlets have amplified unverified Israeli claims that some journalists in Gaza were affiliated with Hamas. She argued that such reporting has created conditions in which dozens of reporters have been killed since October 2023.
She pointed to the case of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who was killed earlier this month alongside his crew in Gaza City. Before his death, the Israeli military accused him of being a Hamas commander but offered no evidence. “Reuters chose to publish Israel’s entirely baseless claim that al-Sharif was a Hamas operative,” Zink wrote, adding that his Pulitzer Prize-winning work for Reuters did not prompt the agency to defend him when his name appeared on what she called a “hit list.”
Zink also criticized Reuters’ muted response to the killing of its own staff, noting that cameraman Hossam al-Masri was among those who died in the Nasser Hospital strike.
“Western media are culpable,” she wrote, describing outlets as “a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda” that erodes journalistic integrity and endangers reporters on the ground.
Press freedom groups estimate that at least 245 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the conflict escalated in late 2023, making it one of the deadliest conflicts for media professionals in modern history.
– CAJ News
