Sana'a - Thirty-one journalists and media workers were killed in Israeli airstrikes on a newspaper complex in Yemen last week, according to a report released Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The attack was the deadliest against journalists since the Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines 16 years ago and the second-deadliest the New York-based press freedom group has recorded.

Israeli strikes hit a government press complex at 4:45 p.m. local time on Sept. 10, as staff of the Yemeni army’s official news outlet were finalizing a weekly print edition, the publication’s editor in chief, Nasser Al-Khadri, told CPJ. The timing contributed to the high death toll in the attack, which killed journalists and media workers at three Houthi-connected media outlets in the heart of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

Yemen’s 26 September newspaper, the army outlet, was the first to name those killed in the attack. A child who had accompanied one journalist to work was also killed in the strikes, Al-Khadri told CPJ.

The Houthi Health Ministry said 35 people were killed in the attack, including journalists, and that 131 were wounded. A Houthi spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement following the attack, the Israel Defense Forces said it had targeted the Houthi military public relations headquarters “responsible for distributing and disseminating pro-Houthi propaganda messages, including speeches of the Houthi leader Abd al-Malik and statements from Houthi spokesman Yahya Sari.”

In a statement to The Washington Post, the IDF said, “During the war, the headquarters led the propaganda efforts and the terrorist regime’s psychological terror.” The IDF did not respond to a request for evidence of military activity at the site.

Israeli strikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels have left a trail of destruction across Sanaa in recent weeks, killing dozens of people, according to Houthi authorities, and destroying homes in residential areas. Iran-backed Houthi rebels have controlled the city for more than 10 years. In support of Hamas, the group has launched waves of missile and drone attacks on Israel throughout the war in Gaza.

Al-Khadri told CPJ that his newspaper’s printing press and century-old archives were destroyed in last week’s attack. “Its loss is deeply painful,” he said.

Human rights advocates said that strikes on news outlets are not justified under international law, even if they are tied to the military or publish political messaging.

“Propaganda is not enough to make a media institution a military target,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch, a leading rights group based in New York that condemned the strike on journalists. “They must be actively contributing to military action, for example engaging in military communications.”

Under international law, journalists are considered civilians unless they are engaged in armed combat or military operations.

Journalists are restricted from reporting independently in Houthi-controlled areas. Newspapers in Sanaa have been largely controlled by the Houthis since the group seized control of the capital in 2014.

“They immediately detained many journalists and took over media institutions,” said Jafarnia, who has documented attacks on the Yemeni press corps during the country’s 11-year civil war, including the attack last week.

Israel’s strike on Yemen’s Houthi-affiliated press corps follows a pattern of strikes across the region.

According to CPJ’s count, the Israeli military has killed at least 233 journalists and media workers across Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen in conflicts that have spanned the region since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

Last week’s strike in Sanaa echoed a June attack on the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster in Tehran. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had pledged that “the mouthpiece of Iranian propaganda” would “disappear.” The IDF said it had hit an Iranian military “communication center,” but it did not provide evidence that the press complex was a military target.

“Israel has turned into a regional killer of journalists,” said Mohamed Mandour, a Middle East and North Africa researcher for CPJ.

Mandour said that he faced distinct challenges documenting the aftermath of Israel’s strikes in Sanaa because of press censorship. The Houthis banned the publication of photos and videos taken of the attack last week, which made documenting the strike’s aftermath difficult, he said. In addition, the U.S. State Department has offered a $15 million reward and “possible re-location” to anyone who provides information that could disrupt Houthi financial networks, seeding widespread paranoia among Yemenis who fear Houthis reprisals if they talk to Americans or answer calls from U.S. numbers.

W.P