By candlelight, and in front of a crowd gathered in Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, the names of dozens of journalists who were killed in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Israel, and Lebanon since October 7, the start date of the current war between the Palestinian Hamas movement and the state of Israel, were read aloud.

People gathered, including journalists from the region, holding flowers and candles in front of pictures of journalists, photojournalists, and media workers who lost their lives while performing their work.

"That was their job, and they died while doing it," said Nasser Najjar, for whom participating in this vigil was very important.

Najjar, residing in Vancouver, is of Palestinian origin from the Gaza Strip where he worked as a journalist and in other fields.

Since the war began in Gaza, Najjar has lost many family members, including an uncle and cousins, as well as relatives, among them former colleagues, whose pictures were placed on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

"I am here in solidarity with my colleagues in Gaza, many of whom I personally knew, people I worked with," said Najjar, "I can’t believe they are no longer in this world. My heart breaks when I see them fall one after another, simply because they were conveying the truth."

2023: A deadly year for journalists in the Gaza Strip
Since October 7, 88 journalists have been killed, according to a preliminary report released Thursday by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), based in New York. Among these dead journalists are two Israelis and three Lebanese. The other 83 are all Palestinians.

More than three quarters of the 99 journalists and media workers who died worldwide in 2023 lost their lives in the war between Israel and Hamas in the last quarter of the year, according to the committee.

The Committee to Protect Journalists will conduct investigations into the circumstances of the deaths of some journalists, suspecting that the Israeli military deliberately targeted them. The Israeli army denies having committed what would be considered war crimes.

2023 was also a particularly deadly year for Palestinian female journalists, according to the "Coalition for Women in Journalism" (CFWIJ), one of the organizations that sponsored this candlelight vigil.

According to Kayan Nazeih, the founder of this organization, among the 19 female journalists killed last year, 15 were Palestinian.