Committee to Protect Journalists says globally no one is held to account in 80 percent of cases where journalists are targeted.

Israel is the world’s second-worst offender after Haiti in letting the murder of journalists go unpunished, according to a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

According to the CPJ’s 2024 Global Impunity Index, released on Wednesday, Somalia, Syria and South Sudan round up the list of the top five countries allowing journalists’ killers to evade justice.

The CPJ index also noted that globally, nobody is held accountable for 80 percent of cases related to the murder of journalists, and in at least 241 killings there has been evidence that the journalists were directly targeted for their work.

The index – which was launched in 2008 – comprises 13 nations this year and includes both democracies and non-democratic governments.

Haiti, which tops the list, has been challenged by the rise of criminal gangs, who played a role in destabilising the country’s administrative and judicial institutions, resulting in the murders of at least seven journalists remaining unresolved in the country, the index said.

Meanwhile, Israel, which ranks second on the list, has appeared on the index for the first time since its inception.

The CPJ said the country’s “failure to hold anyone to account in the targeted killing of five journalists in Gaza and Lebanon in a year of relentless war”, had resulted in its ranking on the index.

While the press freedom NGO is investigating the killings of at least 10 journalists, the CPJ said the number of murdered journalists might still be higher, considering the scale of Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon.

Israel ‘deliberately targeted journalists’

“What’s clear from our index is that Israel is not committed to investigating or punishing those who have killed journalists … Israel has deliberately targeted journalists for being journalists,” CPJ Chief Executive Jodie Ginsberg told Al Jazeera.

She said that in some cases, Israel announced the killings, claiming without evidence the reporters were “terrorists”. In others, like the killing of three Lebanese journalists last week, it was clear they were targeted since nothing else was in the area.

At least 128 journalists and media workers are among the tens of thousands of people Israel has killed in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon over the past year – the deadliest time for journalists since the CPJ began to track the killings more than four decades ago.

The CPJ index also noted that Mexico has recorded the highest overall number of unpunished murders of journalists – 21 – during the index period and ranks eighth on the index because of its sizeable population.

Asian countries like Afghanistan, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines have been appearing on the index regularly since its inception.

Calling on the international community to help journalists, Ginsberg said in a statement: “Murder is the ultimate weapon to silence journalists.”

“Once impunity takes hold, it sends a clear message: that killing a journalist is acceptable and that those who continue reporting may face a similar fate.”