The report also notes Israel restricting journalistic work, including detention, threats, kidnapping and disrupting press activities [GETTY]
At least 193 journalists have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war on the Palestinian enclave in October 2023, including some who were deliberately targeted, according to a new report.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) found that in 2024 alone, 91 media workers, among them 23 female journalists, were killed, while 86 faced injuries, with many later dying due to a lack of access to medical treatment.
Most of the journalists were killed by airstrikes, drone attacks, artillery shells or sniper fire. The organisation found 148 incidents of journalists being shot, 85 suffering from tear gas inhalation, and 23 cases of journalists being hit or nearly hit by military vehicles.
PJS’s report ‘A Shattered Voice and a Clearer Picture’ also outlines a pattern of Israeli forces’ “deliberate targeting of the press” in Gaza and throughout the occupied territories.
“Journalists were often treated as direct threats and marked for death,” the report said. Drone strikes killed 29 journalists in a single year.
There have also been cases when multiple journalists have been killed in a single attack, including an Israeli airstrike that killed five journalists in December.
The report also detailed Israel’s methods of restricting journalistic work in Gaza, including detentions, threats, kidnappings, and the disruption of press activities by targeting communication networks and the hacking of Palestinian content on social media. Essentially all foreign reporting in Gaza without an Israeli military escort has been banned.
At least 64 journalists have been detained across the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with 15 undergoing interrogations and 27 being tried in military courts, the report adds.
Most of these occurred in the occupied West Bank, with journalists experiencing 367 incidents of journalists and media workers being detained or obstructed by Israeli forces while working.
Media workers have also faced physical assault, including being beaten with rifle butts and batons, kicked, verbally abused, and having their equipment confiscated and their footage deleted.
“Some remain in administrative detention without charges or fair trials, while others were temporarily detained and subjected to torture,” the report said, noting the forced disappearances of journalists Nidal Al-Wahidi of AlNajah TV and New Press and Haitham Abdul Wahid of Eye Media.
The report also highlighted settler attacks on journalists, with 27 cases being reported, particularly around occupied Jerusalem.
Families of journalists have also been caught up in Israel’s war on Palestinian journalism, with almost 164 relatives killed by Israeli airstrikes targeting their houses with 53 homes of journalists destroyed.
“Many journalists lost entire families, paying the ultimate price for their profession,” PJS said in its report.
Israeli authorities also targeted media institutions, with 54 cases of organisations being destroyed, shut down, or vandalised. A further 28 faces closures or extended shutdowns.
This also includes Israel’s closure of Al Jazeera’s West Bank office in an attempt to restrict the Qatari network’s operation in the region.
With foreign journalists prohibited from entering the Gaza Strip by Israel, reporting from the territory has largely been left to Palestinian journalists, risking their lives to document daily life in the war-ravaged Strip, as well as an array of Israeli crimes.
