Reuters stringer Valerie Zink resigns, says agency justifies Israel’s targeting of journalists

‘273 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023’

Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink has announced her resignation from Reuters after eight years as a stringer, saying she can no longer work for an agency she accuses of “justifying and enabling” Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza.

In a post on her personal Facebook page, Zink said Reuters’ reporting has helped create the conditions in which 246 journalists have been killed since Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023. Her work for Reuters has previously appeared in the New York Times, Al Jazeera, and other outlets across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Zink cited the case of Anas al-Sharif, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Al Jazeera correspondent killed along with his crew in Gaza City on August 10. “Reuters chose to publish Israel’s entirely baseless claim that Al-Sharif was a Hamas operative – one of countless lies that media outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified,” she wrote.

She also condemned Reuters’ response to the killing of its own staff. On Monday, cameraman Hossam al-Masri was among 21 people, including medics and journalists, killed in an Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Zink described it as a “double tap” attack, where an initial strike is followed by another targeting rescuers, medics, and reporters.

“Western media is directly culpable for creating the conditions in which this can happen,” she said, quoting journalist Jeremy Scahill’s description of major outlets like the New York Times, AP, and Reuters as “conveyor belts for Israeli propaganda.”

She argued that repeating Israeli military claims without verification has allowed more journalists to be killed in Gaza in the past two years than in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine combined.

Zink accused Reuters of failing to defend Al-Sharif even after he won the agency a Pulitzer Prize. She said the press pass now feels like “deep shame and grief” and pledged to dedicate her future work to honouring Gaza’s journalists, calling them “the bravest and best to ever live.”

The attack on Nasser Hospital, which killed Al Jazeera’s Mohammad Salama, Reuters cameraman Hossam al-Masri, AP freelancer Mariam Abu Daqqa, and others, has sparked global condemnation.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate called it “an open war against free media,” while UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese urged sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel. The Committee to Protect Journalists said the international community must hold Israel accountable for “continued unlawful attacks on the press.”

French President Emmanuel Macron called the strikes “intolerable,” Germany and Spain demanded an independent probe, and the UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was “horrified.”

Turkey, Qatar, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia also condemned the attacks, while the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation described it as an assault on press freedom.

According to Al Jazeera, at least 273 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023.