By Quds News Network
Occupied Palestine (Quds News Network)- Palestine has become the world’s deadliest place for journalists and media workers, as Israel’s war on Gaza targets not just lives but the truth—dozens of reporters killed, others arrested, and media outlets reduced to rubble.
Every year on May 3, UNESCO commemorates World Press Freedom Day. It is being marked today with Israel’s war on Gaza becoming the deadliest for journalists and media workers.
“When we lose a journalist, we lose our eyes and ears to the outside world. We lose a voice for the voiceless,” Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement last year.
“World Press Freedom Day was established to celebrate the value of truth and to protect the people who work courageously to uncover it.”
“Press freedom is under threat in every region of the world. States harass, detain, torture and even kill media workers, simply for doing their jobs,” the Commissioner said in a statement on Saturday.
World’s Most Dangerous State for Journalists
Reporters Without Borders said on Friday in its World Press Freedom Index 2025 that Israeli forces killed nearly 200 journalists and media workers in the first 18 months of its war in Gaza, at least 42 of whom were killed while doing their job, adding that Palestine has become the world’s most dangerous state for journalists amid the Israeli war.
“Trapped in the enclave, journalists in Gaza have no shelter and lack everything, including food and water,” said the Paris-based group, which is also known by its French acronym RSF.
“In the West Bank, journalists are routinely harassed and attacked by both settlers and Israeli forces, but repression reached new heights with a wave of arrests after 7 October, when impunity for crimes committed against journalists became a new rule.”
At least 212 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the start of the Israeli assault in October 2023, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.
“The Government Media Office condemns in the strongest terms the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation,” the Office said in a statement on Saturday.
“We call on the International Federation of Journalists, the Federation of Arab Journalists, and all journalistic bodies in all countries of the world to condemn these systematic crimes against Palestinian journalists and media professionals in the Gaza Strip,” it added.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has been considered the deadliest for journalists and media workers in the world in 30 years.
The Office said that Israel targeted journalists “in an attempt to suppress the Palestinian narrative and erase the truth. However, the occupation failed to break the will of our great people.”
Israel’s assault on Gaza has been the “worst ever conflict” for journalists, according to a recent report by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
The report, titled News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World, said the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip had “killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, 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”.
“In 2023, a journalist or media worker was, on average, killed or murdered every four days. In 2024, it was once every three days,” said the report.
“Most reporters harmed or killed, as is the case in Gaza, are local journalists.”
The Center for Protecting Palestinian Journalists (PJPS) said that the killing of journalists is part of a series of human rights violations committed by the Israeli occupation.
In its annual report, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said a record number of journalists were killed in 2024, with Israel responsible for more than two-thirds of those deaths.
The committee’s chief Jodie Ginsberg said in the statement, “The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists in conflict zones, but it is far from the only place journalists are in danger.”
At least 85 journalists died throughout 2024 at the hands of the Israeli military during Israel’s war on Gaza, the CPJ said, with 82 of those who were killed being Palestinians.
The advocacy group also accused Israel of attempting to stifle investigations into the killings, shift blame onto journalists for their own deaths, and ignoring its duty to hold its own military personnel accountable for the killings of so many media workers.
In a recent report, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) described 2024 as “one of the worst years” for media professionals. It condemned the “massacre taking place in Palestine before the eyes of the entire world.”
Arrest and Detention
Israeli occupation forces have carried out at least 180 arrests among Palestinian journalists both in the West Bank and Gaza since the start of the genocide, Palestinian prisoner defense groups said on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day.
Among the 180 arrests, 49 Palestinian journalists who were detained after the genocide began remain behind bars, in addition to six others who were arrested beforehand.
Prisoner groups noted that the occupation continues to forcibly disappear Palestinian journalists Nidal Al-Wahidi and Haitham Abdel Wahid who were abducted from Gaza. Since October 7, the occupation has refused to reveal their fate – whether they are alive or not – despite efforts by numerous human rights organizations and ongoing demands for information. It is known that the occupation employed enforced disappearance broadly against detainees from Gaza.
Among the 49 detained journalists, 19 are being held under the so-called “administrative detention” policy without trial or charge. This policy has affected thousands of Palestinians in an ongoing attempt to impose greater control and censorship, depriving them of their right to freedom of opinion and expression, and preventing them from exposing the occupation’s crimes that permeate every aspect of Palestinian life. Many journalists have been subject to administrative detention — some have been released, while others remain imprisoned. One such case is journalist Nidal Abu Aker from Bethlehem, who has spent nearly 20 years in occupation prisons, most of it under administrative detention.
Detained journalists face all the violations endured by other prisoners, including systematic torture, severe beatings, starvation, medical neglect, and continuous humiliation and abuse. They are held under harsh and degrading detention conditions and are continuously deprived of their rights.
Gaza’s Media Sector Devastated
According to the Gaza Media Office:
- A total of 143 media institutions have been targeted, including 12 print newspapers, 23 digital news platforms, 11 radio stations, and 4 satellite television channels operating within Gaza.
- Furthermore, the offices of 12 Arab and international TV networks have been destroyed.
- 44 homes belonging to journalists were attacked by Israeli airstrikes, while 21 influential social media activists have lost their lives.
- Printing facilities have been bombed, critical broadcast and production equipment—including cameras and live transmission vehicles—has been destroyed, and numerous digital platforms and social media accounts have been suspended or blocked under claims of “violating community standards.”
The estimated financial loss to Gaza’s media sector has exceeded $400 million, reflecting the scale of a “comprehensive assault that has not only targeted infrastructure and lives but also aimed to silence the voice, image, and narrative of a people.”
212 Stories: Here Are Some
1. Wafa Aludaini, a prominent English-speaking reporter who worked with international news outlets, was killed alongside her husband, Mueir Aludaini, and their two children in an Israeli attack on Septemer 30, 2024.
She was mourned by many fellow journalists who praised her dedication to bringing the stories of Palestinians to the world.
“Aludaini was well-known among European media outlets and conveyed the suffering of our people in English, which she was a master of,” Ahmed Abu Artema, a Palestinian journalist and friend of Aludaini, said.
“The justification for her targeting are her words and work as a journalist,” he added.
2. Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi were killed in an Israeli air attack on July 31, 2024. The reporters were killed when their car was hit in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.
Days before his death, Ismail sent a message to a colleague, expressing the emotional toll of nearly 300 days of relentless war in Gaza.
“Let me tell you, my friend, that I no longer know the taste of sleep. The bodies of children and the screams of the injured and their blood-soaked images never leave my sight. The cries of mothers and the wailing of men who are missing their loved ones never fade from my ears.”
“I can no longer bear the sound of children’s voices from beneath the rubble, nor can I forget the energy and power that reverberates at every moment, turning into a nightmare. It is no longer easy for me to stand before the rows of coffins, which are locked and extended, or to see the dead people more than the living who are fighting death beneath their homes, not finding a way out to safety and survival.
“I am tired, my friend.”
3. Ahmed Mansour succumbed to burns sustained a day after an Israeli strike on a tent where reporters were known to reside in Khan Younis was set on fire on April 7, 2025.
In a widely shared clip, the correspondent for the local Palestine Today news agency was seen engulfed in flames as colleagues desperately attempted to save him.
“Ahmad burned in front of the whole world,” his wife said at his funeral. “The whole world saw him as he was burning, and nobody was able to help him.”
4. Among those tragically lost in Israel’s targeting of Palestinian journalists is Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old journalist working for Al Jazeera Mubasher. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, on 24 March 2025.
Before Hossam’s death, his name was circulating on social media after he told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces were targeting journalists, threatening their families, and warning them to leave their work or face destruction.
His final social media posts reveal just how dedicated he was to telling the truth. In his last message, posted after his death, he wrote: “If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed — most likely targeted — by the Israeli occupation forces.”
In the post, he also wrote: “I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest — something I haven’t known in the past 18 months.”
Reflecting on 18 months of documenting Gaza’s suffering — during which he often slept wherever he could, endured hunger, and risked his life to expose the truth — Hossam described how his work involved taking photos, recording videos, and sharing news updates to reveal the devastation Gaza’s civilians were facing to the world.
He once wrote, “Getting out alive from this war was a miracle for my family,” highlighting the danger of his work, which was driven by his love for his homeland and strong sense of responsibility.
4 May 2025
Source: countercurrents.org