Media under siege: The alarming toll of war on Palestinian journalists in Gaza

Daily Maverick

21-04-2025

More media workers have been killed in Gaza than in all the wars over a period of more than 100 years combined. That means more than 200 journalists have been killed during the Gaza conflict.
Two Palestinian journalists and a media worker were burned alive in a targeted attack by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in Gaza overnight on Sunday and Monday, 6 and 7 April 2025, once again highlighting the dangers faced by those covering the Gaza war and West Bank conflict.
'An Israeli airstrike on a tent in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday evening killed several journalists and a 27-year-old father who was working with an NBC News crew,' the channel reported.
'The strike killed Ahmed Mansour, an editor with the Palestine Today news agency, and his coworker Hilmi Al-Faqawi. Yousef Al-Khozindar, a father of two working with NBC News to procure supplies and fuel, was in the tent next door,' said NBC.
The Committee to Protect Journalists denounced Israel's targeted airstrike that hit the media tent in the grounds of a hospital in Gaza, killing the two journalists and injuring seven others, and called on the international community to act to stop Israel killing Palestinian journalists.
Cost of War report
Al-Khozindar later died from his burns, bringing the death toll to three.
Meanwhile, a Cost of War report by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University in the US says the war in Gaza has, since 7 October 2023, killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars 1 and 2, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan combined. More than 200 journalists, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed in this conflict.
Reporters Without Borders stated in its press freedom report for 2024 that Israel, a country that has always prided itself on being the only democracy in the Middle East, had slid down to number 101 out of 180 countries for media freedom. South Africa came in at number 38.
Omar Nazzal from the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, who was held in Israeli administrative detention, or detention without trial, said covering the conflict had always been tough for Palestinian journalists because of attacks by Israeli soldiers, but the situation had escalated significantly since Hamas' 7 October attack on Israel.
'It's a scary situation now because we never know when Israeli soldiers and settlers will shoot at us, beat us up, vandalise our cars or arrest us without charges,' said Nazzal in Jenin, where dozens of Palestinians have been killed, including gunmen.
Palestinian civilians have also been forced from the Jenin refugee camp and its surrounds as Israel carries out a vast displacement campaign, which has resulted in more than 40,000 Palestinians being driven from their homes in several towns and cities in the West Bank.
Nazzal said Israeli soldiers had also deliberately run over Palestinian journalists and destroyed their equipment.
The deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists has been investigated by several media organisations. The International Federation of Journalists said it had evidence that the Israeli army had deliberately targeted journalists, and some of these cases were now the subject of a complaint filed at the International Criminal Court.
'Longstanding pattern of impunity'
The Committee to Protect Journalists called for an end to the longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF. Even before the October attack, the committee said a pattern of journalists being deliberately targeted and the consequent impunity was a problem.
Several internationally renowned media outlets also carried out their own investigations into incidents in which Palestinian journalists were killed by the IDF, which then denied responsibility before deflecting blame.
For example, the Washington Post did a forensic investigation into the killing of renowned Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who worked for Al Jazeera. She was shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the Jenin refugee camp in the northern Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank in 2022.
The newspaper disputed Israel's original claim that Abu Akleh had been killed by 'indiscriminate gunfire' from Palestinian armed groups.
Foreign journalists who have spent time in the West Bank and reported from there have also faced difficulties trying to cover the situation despite their foreign passports, Israeli government press accreditation and mostly white skins. While international media organisations investigate the intimidation and targeted killings and crunch the numbers, many foreign journalists don't need convincing.
Intensified pressure
Several foreign media teams, including Australia's ABC and CNN in the US, have been harassed and intimidated by both Israeli settlers and soldiers as they tried to cover West Bank violence.
'The repression of reporters in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has intensified in recent months despite the recent ceasefire in Gaza, which collapsed when Israel resumed its strikes on the Western Palestinian strip,' said Reporters Without Borders. 'In the eastern Palestinian territories, Israeli armed forces have shot at journalists, arrested them and restricted their movement.'
Jafar Shtayeh, a photographer with AFP who has been on several assignments in the West Bank, has also been shot at and beaten up over the years by Israeli soldiers.
'However, the situation is way more serious because working as a journalist has now become a life-and-death event, and every time we cover a story we worry about getting out alive,' Shtayeh said.
Wajjah Mufleh and Mujahid Mufleh, two Palestinian journalists from Beita, near Nablus in the West Bank, have in recent months been stopped regularly by the Israeli military as they enter and exit the village covering stories.
'We were assaulted, held for hours with our hands zip-tied and then released with no reason given for our detention. It's just a repeated pattern of harassment and intimidation,' Wajjah said.
Reporters Without Borders traces Israel's disinformation campaign and its increasing repression of the media to the right-wing, conservative Israeli government and several laws passed by the Knesset, or parliament. These include a 2023 amendment to the anti-terrorism law that punishes those who 'systematically and continuously consume terrorist publications', or who broadcast 'a direct call to commit an act of terrorism'.
'Its broad interpretation in the context of war carries risks for press freedom,' Reporters Without Borders said. A second law, approved by Parliament in 2024, makes it possible to prohibit the broadcast of foreign media that allegedly threatens state security.
Palestinians have also been arrested and charged simply for expressing sympathy for Gaza or sharing posts by resistance groups.
Attacks by organised crime and police brutality during protests are the main concerns in terms of the safety of journalists in Israel. Twenty-three journalists are being detained at present.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Press Association in Israel has taken the Israeli government to court twice, demanding that the ban on journalists entering Gaza to cover the conflict be lifted. Twice this has been rejected, including by Israel's Supreme Court. DM