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The Israeli missile that hit Al Jazeera’s tent targeted more than five people; it struck at the principle that the public has a right to know and at the belief that truth should outlive the men and women who report it.
On the night of August 10, 2025, the air over Gaza City hung heavy with dust and the steady thrum of generators. In a modest press tent pitched outside the bomb-scarred shell of al-Shifa Hospital, Al Jazeera’s last reporting team in the city worked with the quiet urgency of people who knew each second could be their last chance to bear witness. Cameras waited on tripods. Laptops glowed on folding tables. There were no sandbags or armed guards, only the visible markings of the press, meant to signal protection under the laws of war.
Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based global news network, has kept a permanent presence in Gaza for years, often reporting from places other international media could not reach. The network has long faced hostility from Israeli officials, who have accused it of bias and threatened to shutter its Jerusalem bureau. Al Jazeera has rejected these accusations, pointing to its record of reporting from all sides of the conflict. During this war, with foreign reporters barred from entering without Israeli military escort, its local Palestinian journalists became one of the few remaining sources of independent, on-the-ground coverage from inside the enclave. Their reports, footage, and interviews were carried not only to millions of viewers across the Arab-speaking world but also by major global outlets.
Inside the tent sat Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa. Minutes later, an Israeli missile struck the tent. The Israeli military admitted targeting the site, alleging al-Sharif was a Hamas cell leader. No independent evidence has confirmed that claim. Al Jazeera stated that this was a targeted assassination.
The blast did more than tear through canvas and steel. It silenced the final independent voices still reporting from Gaza City. When you kill the witness, you kill the story. And when the story dies, accountability dies with it. This was not an isolated tragedy. It was part of a pattern that, measured across the war, has made Gaza the deadliest place on Earth for journalists in the modern record.
The deliberate killing of multiple journalists from a single, reputable newsroom is not without precedent. Each time it happens, it marks a rupture in the global record. In 1975, the Balibo Five were executed in East Timor to prevent them from reporting on Indonesia’s invasion. In 2009, the Maguindanao Massacre claimed 32 reporters in the Philippines, the largest single-day killing of journalists in history, as a warning to all who might challenge local power. In 2012, American correspondent Marie Colvin was killed when Syrian forces shelled a known media center in Homs. In Nazi Germany and under Stalin’s Soviet Union, many journalists were imprisoned, exiled, or executed for defying the state narrative, their deaths folded into broader purges and wartime atrocities. The tent strike in Gaza now stands in this grim lineage, a calculated act to silence witnesses and send a message to the world that there are places you will not be allowed to see.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports at least 192 journalist deaths since October 7, 2023: 184 Palestinian, 2 Israeli, and 6 Lebanese, as of August 11, 2025. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) counts at least 195 media workers killed. Gaza’s Government Media Office claims 238, while the Costs of War Project at Brown University documents about 232 through late March 2025. These totals vary depending on whether the counts include foreign correspondents, media support staff, or missing journalists presumed dead.
Even the lowest confirmed total makes this the deadliest conflict for journalists in CPJ’s record, surpassing all others in speed and density of loss. From October 7, 2023, through August 11, 2025, an average of about 8 to 9 journalists per month have been killed, totaling 192 deaths. For comparison, during the entire U.S. war in Iraq, which lasted more than eight years, CPJ recorded 204 journalists and media workers killed. Both figures are from CPJ’s database, using the same definitions for journalists and media workers. Each number is a human being with a family, colleagues, and a record of truths that now stops mid-sentence. The IFJ estimates that more than 10% of Gaza’s entire journalist corps has been killed.
Such a pattern does not happen by accident. The scale and pace of these deaths suggest an intentional effort to remove those who can create an independent record of the war.
The first casualty is often the truth. In Gaza, it is the truth tellers. These deaths are not the inevitable byproduct of a chaotic battlefield. They result from deliberate decisions to remove those most capable of documenting events and holding perpetrators to account.
The pattern is well known: Eliminate independent eyes, leaving only the account sanctioned by those in power, seal off the site, and eliminate evidence until only the official version remains. This is not only about shaping opinion in the moment. In war crimes tribunals, journalistic photographs, videos, and testimonies have been used as evidence, making those who capture them a direct threat to impunity. United Nations Special Rapporteur Irene Khan has said that attacks on journalists fit into a global pattern of repression that undermines democracy. In Gaza, this sequence is already well underway.
If those with the cameras are gone, who decides what the rest of us see?
The press corps’ decimation forms the outer wall of a larger project. Human rights groups warn that this campaign seeks the political and demographic erasure of the 5.4 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, with displacement, imprisonment, and disenfranchisement on a mass scale. The methods are familiar: trap communities in “no exit” zones, dismantle life-sustaining infrastructure, close borders, and silence those who can bear witness. History shows that when the heart of a people is targeted, the tremors do not stop at its borders. They move outward, altering the lives of kin and communities far beyond the place where the attack began.
History shows what follows when the witnesses are gone. In the Balkans, in Syria, in Myanmar, the absence of independent eyes allowed perpetrators to dictate the record and insist their version was the only truth.
The strike on the al-Shifa tent happened before the last neighborhoods went quiet. In wars where mass displacement or worse is contemplated, silencing independent reporting is often an early operational step. Sarajevo’s television studios were shelled into darkness. In Aleppo, journalists were hunted through the rubble. In Myanmar, reporters documenting the Rohingya crisis were jailed or killed.
The reason rarely changes: Without witnesses, atrocities can be denied, timelines rewritten, and casualty counts reduced to rumor. In that vacuum, truth becomes whatever those in power decide it should be. If those with the cameras are gone, who decides what the rest of us see?
The elimination of journalists is not only about restricting information. It is about shaping the emotional terrain of the conflict. Each killing sends a message to the surviving press that they are not protected and that their work makes them targets. This is psychological warfare, aimed not just at reporters but at the public they serve. When people see that even clearly marked press are attacked, they understand that there is no neutral ground, no shield of visibility.
As more journalists are driven out or silenced, fewer remain to challenge official accounts, leaving entire populations dependent on information filtered through those in power. In Latin America’s “Dirty Wars,” in Sri Lanka’s civil war, and in the Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos, such tactics were designed to suppress the will to resist by convincing whole communities that their suffering would never be witnessed, much less believed. Gaza’s blackout is not only the removal of documentation; it is the removal of hope that anyone will ever hear the truth.
The same blueprint used to silence the press abroad is already finding footholds within U.S. borders. The United States operates over 200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities, many with the regimentation and secrecy of military compounds. Policy proposals from the current administration and its allies call for mass deportations, an executive order to curtail birthright citizenship that is now blocked in court, and expansion of detention capacity on military bases.
Journalists who have investigated ICE activities, including deportation operations, workplace raids, and conditions inside its facilities, have frequently faced barriers. Reporters have been denied access, threatened with legal action, or physically removed while trying to document these operations. Some have been blocked from speaking with detainees, filming at detention sites, or covering ICE enforcement actions in the community. CPJ Executive Director Jodie Ginsberg has said that keeping journalists out keeps the truth out. The language used to justify these restrictions, portraying detainees as criminals, threats, or “invaders,” is identical to that used elsewhere to prepare the ground for repression.
What is refined in one arena, whether a detention camp, a protest site, or a conflict zone, does not remain there.
Every time this script is run abroad, it becomes easier to perform at home. This is not hypothetical. At Standing Rock, reporters were arrested and equipment seized. In 2020, journalists covering protests after the murder of George Floyd were injured by rubber bullets, exposed to tear gas, and detained. These incidents limited what the public could see in real time and in some cases allowed authorities to control the only surviving footage or accounts. The method is the same as in other crackdowns: Control the people by controlling what can be seen and said.
The United States is not alone. India has stripped citizenship from Muslims in Assam. Hungary has throttled independent media through legal and regulatory pressure. Egypt detains and silences journalists as a matter of policy. In each case, independent reporting was crippled before mass arrests, disenfranchisement, or expulsions took place. The success of such methods in one state emboldens others to replicate them, creating a cycle in which press repression becomes both normalized and exportable. What is refined in one arena, whether a detention camp, a protest site, or a conflict zone, does not remain there. It is studied, shared, and deployed wherever those in power fear scrutiny.
When the press is killed or silenced, officials often say that war is dangerous and journalists accept the risks. The Geneva Conventions, however, make clear that journalists are civilians who are entitled to protection and that danger does not permit targeting them. Another common defense is to claim that those killed were militants posing as reporters, a label that, once applied, erases legal protections. In Gaza, no independent body has verified the accusations against Anas al-Sharif or his colleagues.
Some insist that Gaza is unique, avoiding comparisons to other situations where states control movement, limit oversight, and erase populations from public life. Others dismiss historical parallels as exaggeration, ignoring that forced displacement, legal nullification, and the silencing of witnesses have long been precursors to atrocities. When criticism of Israeli policy is labeled antisemitic, governance is conflated with identity, and legitimate scrutiny is deflected.
Jewish journalists and Israeli human rights advocates have also criticized these policies, underscoring that opposition is not rooted in prejudice. The rhetoric that frames such criticism as antisemitic is part of the machinery of repression, conditioning the public to excuse the killings and accept the absence of independent reporting.
The missile that hit Al Jazeera’s tent targeted more than five people; it struck at the principle that the public has a right to know and at the belief that truth should outlive the men and women who report it.
If every image, every report, and every interview were filtered through those with something to hide, how would you know what happened? Imagine it is your city where the cameras have gone dark. That a protest you joined, a police raid in your neighborhood, or a natural disaster in your community is unfolding, and the only images that will survive are the ones the authorities approve. Imagine knowing that the people documenting the truth are being hunted, and that without them, your story will vanish into an official silence polished to look like fact.
This is not a thought experiment. The tools and tactics now used against journalists in Gaza, from mass surveillance to targeted suppression, are already here, in our cities, at our borders, in our public spaces. The question is not if they could be turned inward, but when, and against whom.
For Americans who think they are insulated from this logic, the warning is blunt: The systems refined in Gaza do not stay there.
If Gaza’s press corps can be eliminated so quickly while the world looks away, then no war zone, no protest, and no detention center is safe from the same erasure. That is how it starts. You eliminate independent eyes, leave only the account sanctioned by those in power, and then rewrite the story as if they never existed.
To defend journalists is to defend the archive of truth itself, the evidence from which any hope of justice must be built. Without that record, there is only the official version, changed at will, designed to serve those in power. For Americans who think they are insulated from this logic, the warning is blunt: The systems refined in Gaza do not stay there. They adapt. They travel. They are deployed wherever those in power fear exposure.
You can push back. Support independent and at-risk journalists through organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, or local press freedom funds. Demand that your representatives back enforceable protections for journalists at home and abroad. Share the work of those risking their lives to report from Gaza and other conflict zones. Your advocacy, funding, and amplification are part of the fragile chain that keeps future atrocities from being erased.
The press tent outside al-Shifa was a small, temporary structure. The idea behind its destruction was neither small nor temporary. Unless the witness is defended everywhere, we may find no one left to tell our story when it matters most.
"Our thoughts are with the families and friends of 122 media professionals killed this year. Behind this high figure, there are 122 truncated stories," said IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger.
The International Federation of Journalists, a group that represents media professionals, on Tuesday decried 2024 as one of the deadliest years for journalists. The group reports that more than 50% of those journalist deaths took place in the Middle East and Arab world—many due to Israeli airstrikes that have rained down on Gaza since October 7, 2023.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reports that its updated tally for journalists killed in 2024 stands at 122, up from the 104 documented killings the group reported on December 10, International Human Rights Day. "The updated list of 31 December is primarily the result of additional deaths in the Middle East and the Arab world—nine more journalists have been killed in Palestine and two in Syria," per the group.
Last week, the Israeli military bombed a press vehicle in Gaza, killing five journalists in an attack that the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned as a "heinous crime." The journalists—Fadi Hassouna, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Ali, Mohammed al-Ladah, Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, and Ayman al-Jadi—all worked for "Al-Quds Today," a local television channel.
IFJ reported that 129 journalists and media workers were killed in 2023. Since October 7, 2023 "the number of Palestinian journalists killed has risen to at least 147, making this country one of the most dangerous in the history of modern journalism," wrote IFJ in a Tuesday statement.
"Our thoughts are with the families and friends of 122 media professionals killed this year. Behind this high figure, there are 122 truncated stories," wrote IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger in the statement.
"To guarantee that the deaths of journalists do not go unpunished and to put an end to this scourge once and for all, we urge U.N. member states to take steps to ensure the adoption of a binding convention on the safety of journalists," he added.
Another group that advocates for journalists, Reporters Without Borders, offered a lower figure for the number of journalists killed worldwide in 2024 in their yearly roundup, which was published mid-December. Using a more narrow definition of journalists "killed on the job or in connection with their work," the group reported that at least 54 journalist had been killed around the globe this year.
Meanwhile, the outlet Al Jazeera on Monday published a tribute to Palestinian journalists and media workers killed in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and December 25, 2024—tallying at least 217 journalists and media workers slain.
If this year is a litmus test for democracy around the world, a pre-indicator will be how the media are treated.
In just the first week of this year, at least 18 journalists were assaulted or harassed while covering alleged election irregularities and violence in Bangladesh. Then, in early February, journalists in Pakistan were hindered from covering elections by a wave of violence, widespread internet blackouts, and mobile-network suspensions. In March, journalists in Turkey had been shot at and banned from observing local elections, despite their legal right to do so.
It was a worrying, but not especially surprising, start to this “super election year.” With half the world’s population casting ballots, independent reporting on the candidates and the issues is essential. Yet attacks on the media are rising, even in more mature democracies. In the United States, Donald Trump’s return as a candidate has brought back fresh memories of January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the Capitol, lunged at journalists and destroyed their cameras, and scribbled “Murder the media” on the doors.
Such examples are illustrative of a broader problem. From the U.S. to India, hard-won freedoms and rights are being eroded. In 2023, the V-Dem Institute, which monitors democracy around the world, published a report warning that the progress made toward democratization since 1989 is being reversed. The authors identify increased attacks on journalists as a leading indicator of autocratization: “Aspects of freedom of expression and the media are the ones ‘wannabe dictators’ attack the most and often first.”
Independent, professional journalism—both local and national—is even more important now that misinformation and disinformation are flooding into the public domain.
There is no doubt that threats to journalists are on the rise, and not just in countries where independent media is always a target. Over the past three years, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented near-record numbers of journalists (and even top media executives) behind bars, including in supposed democracies such as Guatemala, and in places that once enjoyed relatively high levels of personal and political freedom, such as Hong Kong.
Journalist killings are at their highest levels in almost a decade. In 2022, the American investigative journalist Jeff German was stabbed outside his home in Las Vegas, and a politician whom German had reported on is now awaiting trial for the murder. From Washington and Westminster to Buenos Aires and Budapest, journalists who cover politics receive death threats daily and are increasingly vulnerable to being targeted at political rallies and protests.
According to a 2021 UNESCO report, three-quarters of women journalists surveyed had experienced online hate, harassment, or threats of violence. Among the most likely triggers for such abuse was reporting on “politics and elections.” Women and those from marginalized communities bear the brunt of this anti-media harassment online, and the vitriol frequently spills over into real-world violence.
The consequences of this disturbing trend are not limited to the media. Attacks on journalists harm us all. Journalists perform the public’s due diligence on candidates, probing their professional records, the veracity of their claims, and the credibility of their promises. By reporting on policy achievements and failures, they help corroborate—or contradict—a candidate’s official narrative, exposing lies and smear campaigns for what they are. They also provide practical information about voting processes, and monitor for electoral irregularities and campaign-finance violations. Without such information, there can be no democracy, but rather what V-Dem calls “electoral autocracy,” where elections are empty rituals.
Independent reporting is also crucial for holding accountable those already in power. It was old-fashioned, pound-the-pavement reporting that exposed New York Republican congressman George Santos’ falsified biography, ultimately leading to his ejection from Congress (not to mention criminal charges). It was the news media that aired recordings of Peru’s secret-police chief, Vladimiro Montesinos Torres, bribing judges and politicians—revelations that would lead to the downfall of President Alberto Fujimori. And it was independent reporting on “Partygate” that ultimately forced Boris Johnson out as prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Independent, professional journalism—both local and national—is even more important now that misinformation and disinformation are flooding into the public domain. A recent report by The Associated Press finds that artificial intelligence is “supercharging” the spread of election lies through deepfake images and audio that is impossible to distinguish from authentic recordings. Similarly, a study released in March by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies found that disinformation had increased fourfold (compared to 2022) ahead of recent elections across the continent.
Independent news media are essential to counter this technology-driven trend. Consider Taiwan’s election earlier this year. Although lies flooded online channels throughout the campaign, studies suggest that much of the disinformation was defused by the combined efforts of local media, election authorities, and fact checkers, all of whom deliberately focused on building trust and furnishing voters with what they needed to make an informed, meaningful choice.
We now need to heed these lessons and watch carefully for warning signs. If this year is a litmus test for democracy around the world, a pre-indicator will be how the media are treated. We will have to remain vigilant in defending a free and independent press, and in championing a vibrant and curious local media. If we don’t, you can be certain that the erosion of freedoms will not stop with us.