This investigation, conducted by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, is part of The Gaza Project, a collaboration involving 50 journalists from 13 organizations coordinated by Forbidden Stories.
Salman Bashir had been covering Israel’s war in Gaza on the ground for a month when his fellow journalist, Mohammed Abu Hatab, was killed. He threw his vest emblazoned with “PRESS” down on the ground in anguish during a live broadcast.
“We are victims on live TV,” Bashir said.
Abu Hatab, who worked for Palestine TV, was killed in November in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis in an Israeli strike that destroyed his home and killed 11 of his family members.
He is among the more than 100 journalists who have been killed in the nine months of the war, marking it as the deadliest conflict on record for reporters — even more than World War II, which lasted six years.
When Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza, following the October 7 Hamas attack, the lives of journalists in the Gaza Strip were upended. No one anticipated the scale of loss and pain that was to follow.
Over four months, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, or ARIJ, partnered with 13 other news organizations to investigate the killing, injury, detention, and threats against Palestinian journalists and the destruction of media offices in Gaza. We also investigated attacks on journalists in the West Bank.
“They’ve been killed while reporting on the aftermath of a bombing.”
Despite telecommunication blackouts, the consortium interviewed 120 witnesses in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and consulted around 25 weapons experts and analysts.
The exact number of journalists who have been killed is difficult to determine, with several organizations collecting the information differently, but they all agree that the number is record-breaking.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, documented the killing of 102 Palestinian reporters and other media workers as of June 25, making this the deadliest war for journalists worldwide since the organization began collecting data in 1992.
“They’ve been killed while picking out food. They’ve been killed while resting in a tent,” said Carlos MartĂnez de la Serna, program director at CPJ. “They’ve been killed while reporting on the aftermath of a bombing.”
“They Are Doing Journalism”
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, or SPJ, a nonprofit based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, puts the figure even higher, at 140 journalists and media workers killed from the start of the war, and another 176 injured.
The deaths represent 10 percent of the journalists in Gaza, according to Shuruq As’ad, a spokesperson for the syndicate. “Journalists everywhere should be protected regardless of the country they work in,” she said.
The vast majority of journalists — 89 — were killed in airstrikes. At least 16 were killed while working. At least 56 were killed at home, and most of the time family members were killed with them.
While those killed were overwhelmingly men, 12 of the journalists were women.
The newsroom that lost the most journalists was Al-Aqsa Media Network, a media network affiliated with Hamas: 20 of its journalists were killed.
The Israeli military denied it targets journalists. “The IDF outright rejects the false accusation of targeted killing of journalists,” it said in a statement. “The IDF takes all operationally possible measures to reduce any harm to civilians, including journalists.”
The Israeli military said it “only targets military targets” and claimed Al-Aqsa often employs “terrorists” posing as journalists, but did not provide evidence.
CPJ says it is confident that every name on its casualties list is a journalist. “They are doing journalism, and they’re not engaged in incitement to violence. We clearly draw a line there,” said MartĂnez de la Serna. “We don’t get into evaluating Al-Aqsa or any other publication.”
“We will describe propaganda as propaganda, because it’s what the IDF has been traditionally doing when they have killed a journalist.”
He said the Israeli military is known to discredit journalists by calling them terrorists without evidence, noting that in the 30 years of CPJ’s work, they have never had to remove a name from their lists based on information provided by the Israeli army.
“We will describe propaganda as propaganda, because it’s what the IDF has been traditionally doing when they have killed a journalist,” MartĂnez de la Serna said.
Irene Khan, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, said Israel has not provided evidence when it makes these accusations.
“The Israelis not only have spread disinformation about journalists being linked to militants, but they have not actually provided enough evidence of what care they are taking [to avoid killing journalists],” Khan said. “So they failed on both sides.”
“Why Do We Wear Press Vests?”
On July 7, 2024, a photojournalist was interviewed by journalists who claimed they were being targeted by the Israeli army. The journalists expressed fear of wearing press vests and helmets, as well as concerns about being associated with them. This fear made it difficult for some journalists to find housing or transportation in a war-torn area.
Photojournalist Motaz Azaiza recounted an incident at a cafe where the owner asked him to stop coming in to upload photos, fearing that the presence of a journalist would make the cafe a target for the Israeli army. Another journalist mentioned limiting visits to his family out of fear for their safety.
A correspondent for TRT Arabia, Sami Barhoum, shared an experience where he and his crew were directly hit by an artillery shell, leading to injuries. He believed they were targeted because they were journalists. The cameraman injured in the attack questioned the purpose of wearing press vests and helmets if they were still targeted.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) filed complaints with the International Criminal Court regarding Israeli war crimes against journalists, citing cases of Palestinian journalists killed by the Israeli military. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is investigating over 500 incidents of suspected targeting of journalists by Israeli forces.
The history of Israeli impunity in the occupied territories was highlighted by U.N. special rapporteur Khan. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate documented the destruction of 73 media offices by Israel during the war.
Investigations revealed false statements by the Israeli military after an explosion at the Agence France-Presse headquarters in Gaza. The destruction of media offices, including the Press House supported by Norway and Switzerland, raised concerns about Israeli attacks on journalism. The intentional targeting of media infrastructure was considered a potential war crime under international humanitarian law.
Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif reported being targeted by surveillance drones in Gaza. Israeli drones were known to conduct surveillance in the region even before the recent war. Local inhabitants refer to them as “zanana,” an Arabic term describing the buzzing noise they emit.
Khalil Dewan, a legal expert and drone researcher at the University of London, stated that the Israeli military targets with precise knowledge of their victims. Drones are able to accurately pinpoint their targets by utilizing information obtained from cellphones, social media, live streams, and location tracking if enabled on mobile devices.
Similar to human senses, drones are equipped with sensors for hearing and vision, with the gathered data transmitted to a ground station. According to three experts, Israeli drones have powerful sensors capable of detecting a press vest.
“We were directly targeted by surveillance drones,” stated one source.
Asa Kasher, the architect of the Israel Defense Forces’ 1994 code of ethics, believes that if journalists are clearly marked with press identifiers, drone operators should be able to identify them.
The Israeli military denies deliberately targeting journalists, despite reports of at least 20 media personnel being attacked by precision strikes, with seven wearing press vests.
Surveillance technology utilized by Israel in Gaza extends beyond drones. Recent investigations have revealed the deployment of facial recognition software and artificial intelligence to identify targets.
Amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, neighborhoods have been devastated, and the threat of famine looms large. Palestinian journalists, along with the rest of the population, play a crucial role in sharing the realities of the conflict with the world.
A survey conducted in June found that out of 213 journalists in Gaza, 59 had been injured during the war. Many have also experienced the loss of family members, with some journalists losing multiple relatives.
The toll of the war on journalists in Gaza is immense, with many displaced from their homes multiple times, living in tents, and losing equipment and jobs. The combination of fatalism and dedication among these journalists is difficult to quantify but is evident in their commitment to reporting despite the risks.
The story of Roshdi al-Sarraj, a journalist killed in an Israeli airstrike after defying evacuation orders, highlights the bravery and determination of those reporting from Gaza.
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