Journalism in Gaza

 Since Israel’s war on Gaza began, the territory has become the deadliest conflict zone for journalists in modern history. Over 270 journalists have been killed, more than in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and Afghanistan combined, with the vast majority being Palestinians targeted by Israeli forces. 

At the same time, Israel has imposed a near total ban on international journalists entering Gaza, leading to a lack of independent reporting from the region. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 2024 was the deadliest year on record for journalists globally, with over 120 killed, more than half in Gaza alone. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that at least 192 journalists have been killed in the conflict, 184 of them Palestinian.

This pattern continues. As recently as August 10, 2025, an Israeli airstrike killed six journalists in a single attack, including Al Jazeera reporters Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, and Ibrahim Zaher. They were sheltered in a tent clearly marked “Press” near Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital. 

Israel later claimed the strike was justified, alleging without credible evidence that Sharif was “the head of a Hamas terrorist cell.” Sharif denied the allegations, and Al Jazeera and other media rights groups rejected them. The BBC has reported that before the war, Sharif had previously worked for a Hamas media team..

Such attacks are not new. Israel has repeatedly accused Palestinian journalists of terrorism before killing them, a tactic denounced by RSF as a cover for extrajudicial executions.

In July 2024, Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi were also killed after being designated as militants. CPJ has noted, “International law is clear: Journalists are civilians. Killing them is a war crime.”

While targeting local reporters, Israel has also barred foreign journalists from entering the besieged area. This has created a media blackout, leaving Palestinian journalists as the only reporters documenting the war at great personal risk. 

Since October 2023, Israel has permitted only military escorted tours under strict conditions, for example allowing filming only in certain areas and preventing international media from speaking to Palestinians. This has severely restricted independent reporting.

Without international involvement, Palestinian journalists have become the sole witnesses to Israel’s alleged war crimes. This blackout allows potential violations to go undocumented. Events such as the bombing of Gaza’s only Catholic Church, or the famine that has claimed more lives over the 20th to 30th of July than in the previous 21 months of conflict, are only known through local reporters like al-Sharif who are the sole witnesses to the occupation.

These killings have sparked outrage from the international community. The UN called the August 10th strike a “grave breach of humanitarian law.” But condemnation has not led to accountability.Despite callers for an emergency UN Security Council meeting under Resolution 2222, a resolution which protects journalists in conflict zones, no concrete action has been taken. The U.S. and EU, while criticizing the killings, continue supplying Israel with weapons, with the U.S accounting for 69 percent of Israel's imports of major conventional arms between 2019 and 2023, And 3.9 billion USD of annual military aid under a 10 year contract, followed by Germany responsible for 30 percent of imports between 2019 and 2023.

As Amnesty International has argued,“Israel isn’t just assassinating journalists, it’s attacking journalism itself to prevent the documentation of a genocide.” Without intervention, the full extent of the suffering in Gaza may never be known.

In Gaza, journalism matters because it preserves truth at the very moment it is most vulnerable to being erased. It amplifies voices that would otherwise be buried under the noise of war and repression, allowing stories of ordinary people to reach the world. Journalists create a record that cannot be denied or rewritten, one that forces history to bear witness. At the same time, their work holds those in power to account, challenging attempts to hide behind propaganda or silence. In this way, journalism becomes both a safeguard and a loudspeaker, ensuring the world cannot look away from suffering or from abuses carried out under the cover of darkness.