I think that's a fair statement, but also a far cry from "killing journalists for sport". These kind of exaggerated claims aren't helpful.
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/....
There’s not really any doubt that the press feel they’re targeted, I think some have gone on the record about it. I don’t know how well we can really test such a claim absent the cooperation of the IDF, which will never happen.
My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic. If your army has enough xenophobic misanthropes and incompetent reservists who are willing to shoot at anything not wearing their uniform, the notion of a class of people being “targeted” is rendered redundant.
The Hebrew-speaking hostages who were killed while trying to surrender were just one aspect of this conflict that someone writing a really dark antiwar comedy might have come up with.
Well it's not "academic" if it occupies quite a bit of the public debate, and it's also not helpful if it's actually fairly easy to debunk, and is just fuel for the "they will make up anything to make us look bad" line. All of that energy can and should be spent elsewhere.
"The US State Department subsequently announced on July 4 that tests by independent ballistics experts under U.S. oversight were not conclusive about the gun it was fired from but that US officials have concluded that gunfire from Israeli positions most likely killed Akleh and that there was "no reason to believe" her shooting was intentional. US investigators had "full access"[138] to both IDF and PA investigations.[139][140][141] The Palestinian Public Prosecutor's Office disputes the US conclusion that the bullet cannot be matched to a gun and maintains its position that the killing was premeditated.[142] On July 5, the US stressed that it did not conduct its own probe, but the conclusion was a "summation" of investigations by the Palestinian Authority and Israel.[143]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh#Subsequent_i...