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journalist killings
Israel Condemned for Bombing Rescue Workers Trying to Reach Journalist Buried Under Rubble
"Israel treats journalism as a crime," said one Beirut-based editor.
Apr 22, 2026
The Israel Defense Forces were condemned on Wednesday following reports that the IDF dropped a grenade on Red Cross workers as they attempted to rescue a Lebanese journalist believed trapped beneath rubble in southern Lebanon.
Two journalists from the local media outlet al-Akhbar, Amal Khalil and Zeinab Faraj, were attacked by the IDF after arriving to report at the scene of a previous strike that had killed two civilians in a car in the village of Al-Tiri, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Heidi Pett.
The journalists, who were wounded, found that their own car was stuck under rubble from the second strike and that they were unable to leave.
Red Cross workers then spent hours attempting to reach the reporters. But according to the National News Agency (NNA), other Israeli attacks targeted a major road leading to the village "to prevent ambulance teams from reaching the two journalists.”
Faraj was rescued and brought to the hospital, where she is being treated for severe injuries that require surgery. The NNA and other Lebanese outlets reported that as she was transported to the hospital, the Red Cross vehicle came under Israeli fire, leaving visible bullet holes.
While Faraj was evacuated, however, Khalil remained trapped. According to Reuters, the Lebanese army asked the Israeli military to allow rescuers to retrieve her.
Lebanon's president, Joseph Aoun, also urged the Lebanese Red Cross to cooperate with the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers to "carry out the rescue operation in the shortest possible time.”
But as the rescue workers lifted Khalil from the rubble, an Israeli drone dropped a stun grenade on them, believed to be a warning, which forced the workers to withdraw from the town, according to the Lebanese outlet LBCI. The Red Cross is expected to return later to continue the search for Khalil.
A recent profile of Khalil in the Beirut-based Public Source magazine celebrated her more than two-decade career, which began shortly before Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006. Though she resisted the label of "war correspondent," much of her work since 2023 has again focused on covering what she's described as "resistance" to Israeli aggression.
"I always highlight the steadfastness of ordinary people in their border villages, like the farmers who continued tending their land while the Israeli settlements across from them in northern Palestine were empty," Khalil said. "I debunk the enemy’s narrative of targeting only military sites by showing evidence of them bombing homes, farms, and killing children. After the [2024] ceasefire, I also started documenting how the destruction that followed was many times greater than what had occurred during the war itself."
According to Reporters Without Borders, Khalil previously received death threats from an Israeli phone number in September 2024, while she was reporting on the war that broke out between Israel and Lebanon earlier that year.
She received a message reading, "We know where you are, and we will reach you when the time comes." The message concluded, "I suggest you flee to Qatar or somewhere else if you want to keep your head connected to your shoulders."
The deliberate killing of journalists who are civilians constitutes a war crime under international humanitarian law.
The IDF said it was aware of reports that journalists were injured in Wednesday's attacks, but did not confirm them to The Associated Press. The IDF denied that it was preventing rescue teams from reaching the area. The military also said it “does not target journalists and acts to mitigate harm to them.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found that last year was the deadliest year for journalists in the more than three decades since they began collecting data. An unprecedented 129 journalists and media workers were killed on duty last year. Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the press killings in 2024 and 2025, most of whom were Palestinians in Gaza.
Lara Bitar, editor of Public Source magazine, wrote on social media Wednesday that Khalil and her rescuers had come under attack “because Israel treats journalism as a crime.”
Bitar said, "Amal has been tirelessly and lovingly covering communities impacted by war, occupation, and displacement for decades."
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Killing the Witness: Gaza’s Journalists and the Global Blueprint of Disappearance
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.
Aug 12, 2025
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 Deadliest Conflict for Journalists
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.
Erasing the Record
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.
Why Silencing Comes First
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 United States Is Learning and Exporting the Script
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.
The Predictable Defenses
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 Fight for Witnesses
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.
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Israel's Assault on Gaza Helped Make 2024 One of Deadliest Years Ever for Journalists: Report
"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.
Dec 31, 2024
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.
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This ‘Super Election Year,’ Press Freedom Is More Essential—and More At Risk—Than Ever
If this year is a litmus test for democracy around the world, a pre-indicator will be how the media are treated.
May 03, 2024
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.
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Gaza Journalists Killed by Israel Honored on World Press Freedom Day
"To claim these deaths are accidental is not only incredulous, it is insulting to the memory of professionals who lived their lives in service of truth and accuracy," said one expert.
May 03, 2024
As the international community marked World Press Freedom Day on Friday, journalists and advocates across the globe mourned and celebrated those killed in Israel's ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip.
The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has publicly identified at least 97 media workers killed since Israel launched its retaliatory war on October 7: 92 Palestinian, three Lebanese, and two Israeli reporters.
"Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price—their lives—to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth," said CPJ program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in a Friday statement. "Journalists are civilians who are protected by international humanitarian law in times of conflict. Those responsible for their deaths face dual trials: one under international law and another before history's unforgiving gaze."
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF)—or Reporters Without Borders—puts the journalist death toll in Gaza above 100. Middle East Monitor reports at least 144 members of the press are among the 34,622 Palestinians that Israeli forces have killed in less than seven months in what the International Court of Justice has called a plausibly genocidal campaign.
RSF on Friday released its annual Press Freedom Index. In its section on the Middle East, the group states:
Palestine (157th), the most dangerous country for reporters, is paying a high price. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have so far killed more than 100 journalists in Gaza, including at least 22 in the course of their work. Since the start of the war, Israel (101st) has been trying to suppress the reporting coming out of the besieged enclave while disinformation infiltrates its own media ecosystem.
At the war's six-month mark in April, Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF's Middle East desk, declared that "this massacre must stop. Gaza's reporters must be protected, those who wish must be evacuated, and Gaza's gates must be opened to international media."
"The few reporters who have been able to leave bear witness to the same terrifying reality of journalists being attacked, injured, and killed," he continued, ripping the IDF for "silencing those who are driven by a duty to report the facts."
"RSF calls on the international community, its leaders, and its governments, to do everything to step up pressure on the Israeli authorities to end this disaster," Dagher added. "Palestinian journalism must be protected as a matter of urgency."
The Paris-based group nominated Palestinian journalists covering Gaza for an annual award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)—an honor they received during a ceremony on Thursday.
"Each year, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Prize pays tribute to the courage of journalists facing difficult and dangerous circumstances," said Audrey Azoulay, the U.N. organization's director-general. "Once again this year, the prize reminds us of the importance of collective action to ensure that journalists around the world can continue to carry out their essential work to inform and investigate."
Palestinian journalists covering Israel’s war on Gaza have been awarded UNESCO’s World Press Freedom prize. More than 100 journalists, mostly Palestinians, have been killed in the war. pic.twitter.com/uSfIKsqTyQ
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 3, 2024
Nasser Abu Baker, president of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate and vice-president of the International Federation of Journalists, accepted the prize on behalf of his colleagues in the besieged enclave.
"Journalists in Gaza have endured a sustained attack by the Israeli army of unprecedented ferocity—but have continued to do their jobs, as witnesses to the carnage around them," he said. "It is justified that they should be honored on World Press Freedom Day. What we have seen in Gaza is surely the most sustained and deadly attack on press freedom in history. This award shows that the world has not forgotten and salutes their sacrifice for information."
Mariam Abu Dagga, a 31-year-old photojournalist for the Independent Arabic displaced in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, told CNN: "We are covering the war on Gaza because this is our journalistic duty. It is entrusted upon us... We challenged the Israeli occupation. We challenged the difficult circumstances and the reality of this war, a genocidal war."
"Whenever a journalist is targeted, we ask ourselves who among us will get their turn of being targeted tomorrow," said Abu Dagga, who also noted the emotional toll of tasks such as photographing children beneath the rubble.
“Palestinian journalists have seen what no journalist has.”
For #WorldPressFreedomDay, we spoke to Palestinian journalist Hani Aburezeq, who's been showing the world Israel’s war on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/YikPzX12a7
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 3, 2024
While Israel has repeatedly claimed—as it did to CNN on Friday—that "the IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists," members of the press and others have cast doubt on such comments.
“For far too long Israel has been able to operate with impunity in the occupied Palestinian territory, and this has included occasionally killing reporters, like the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022," Simon Adams, president of the Center for Victims of Torture, told the Inter Press Service.
Given the number of journalists killed in Gaza since October, he said, "to claim these deaths are accidental is not only incredulous, it is insulting to the memory of professionals who lived their lives in service of truth and accuracy."
Simon called for all journalist deaths in Gaza to be reported to the International Criminal Court and asserted that "World Press Freedom Day should be celebrated with a black armband this year."
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The Recent Explosion of Untruth Is a Warning of Things to Come
After Niagara Falls, and Texas, and Gaza, it’s way past time for anyone to think that “it can’t happen here,” because it’s happening now.
Nov 26, 2023
“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” — George Orwell, 1984
In the ever-shrinking world of a free and fair media, the recent weeks have brought an explosion of untruth and a stepped-up war on reality. With democracy increasingly staring into the abyss both at home and abroad, propaganda and censorship are the double-edged sword of rising dictatorship. And now with violent hacking coming from both sides of the blade, it is indeed an increasing struggle to cling to the dream of truth-flavored sanity.
Americans got a scary peek into what the rising confluence of right-wing authoritarianism and its quasi-state media could accomplish on the day before Thanksgiving. That’s when what turned out to be a tragic, fatal car crash at the wrong time in the wrong way at the wrong place—a bridge border crossing between the U.S. and Canada in Niagara Falls—became a launching pad for a Big Lie about immigration and terror that circled the globe several times before the mundane truth put its pants on.
For millions of U.S. web surfers and couch potatoes, the mental connection of Biden, the border, and fiery chaos had already been implanted, and it will remain even as some of the erroneous tweets are deleted.
Here’s what really happened on Wednesday: A 53-year-old couple from Erie County, New York—Monica and Kurt Villani—were driving to a casino in Canada in a Bentley luxury car because of a canceled rock concert when something went terribly wrong. Approaching the Rainbow Bridge border post, the car was traveling 80 to 100 miles per hour—perhaps due to a medical emergency, or a stuck accelerator—and struck a curb, sending the Bentley into the air before a fiery crash and explosion that killed both occupants.
No one can fault the FBI or other agencies for investigating whether this was some type of terror attack, given the location of the accident at a key border crossing, the timing—perhaps the busiest travel day of the year—and the spectacular nature of the explosion. What’s inexcusable, however, was the rapid reporting of the most extreme speculation as fact, and the large number of supposedly responsible politicians willing to run with those untruths.
“What I’ve been told is that this was an attempted terrorist attack,” said Alexis McAdams, a correspondent for Fox News, the right-slanted network that despite a series of scandals and mishaps is still the most-watched cable news channel. Reporting just two and a half hours after the crash, McAdams added that her law enforcement sources believed that the motorists—in reality, remember, two middle-aged KISS fans—“have packed that car full of explosives.”
Thus, the “reputable” Fox News was adding the meat of confirmation to what a frothing right-wing echo chamber on social media was already proclaiming: The “blast” mean a network of terrorists is poised to enter America not only from the south but from the north, thus proving—in their minds—the inherent weakness of President Joe Biden’s border policies. And there was an army of political demagogues eager to run with a false meme.
“We need to lock down the borders immediately,” GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida posed on X/Twitter Wednesday. “Full deportation efforts need to begin. The U.S. does not need to be the world’s hospitality suite any longer.” Added another Florida Republican, Rep. Byron Donalds, in a now deleted tweet: “Open borders, soft-on-crime policies, and bending a knee to the woke P.C. mob is an inevitable threat to our nation and its people. Today’s apparent terrorist attack must be a wake-up call to all Americans.”
The website Meidas Touch published a list of more than 30 Republican officials or right-wing luminaries who tweeted similar sentiments and occasionally embellished their posts with new made-up details, like the discovery of an Iranian passport at the crash site. Some of these posts are still up, days after it became clear that the Niagara Falls crash was just a horrific tragedy and not the far-right’s fever dream of Islamic jihad to justify a repressive response. Others, including Fox News, have ripped yet another page from George Orwell’s 1984—tossing their initial reporting down a memory hole.
Unfortunately, their mission had already been accomplished. For millions of U.S. web surfers and couch potatoes, the mental connection of Biden, the border, and fiery chaos had already been implanted, and it will remain even as some of the erroneous tweets are deleted. And that sense that things are out of control in America is already being used to sell them on a rule-breaking strongman in the White House. That will be used in a Trump 47 presidency to actually carry out Luna’s howling at the moon, to deport so many migrants that America will need a gulag archipelago of camps to hold them.
The Niagara Falls panic didn’t happen in a vacuum, after all. It happened in the same week that Argentina elected a right-wing extremist president in Javier Milei, that the anti-immigration party of radical Geert Wilders won the most seats in the Netherlands parliament, that a fake rumor about the immigration status of a stabbing attacker sparked a destructive riot in Dublin—and that polls show Trump edging into the lead over Biden ahead of 2024′s election.
For these rising, right-wing authoritarians, a free press and its threat of factual public information rate high on their enemies list—as it’s been for strongmen and dictators for the last century. The alliance between Fox News, Elon’s Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), and right-wing blowhards shows how a strong propaganda regime has already been established—but what about the censorship side of the sword?
It’s coming.
Also this past week, we saw a stunning partnership between an increasingly unhinged Musk, the world’s richest man, and a far-right attorney general, the disgraced-but-somehow-still-in-office Ken Paxton of Texas, in taking legal action aimed at undermining and perhaps destroying the left-wing media watchdog group, Media Matters for America. (Full disclosure: Over a decade ago, I had a brief fellowship with MMFA to support a book I was writing.)
It’s not just that the newest generation of chest-thumping strongmen are harnessing the electrons of the 21st century to hypercharge their modern Ministries of Untruth, but that the guardians of the actual truth—the newsroom grand poobahs, an American president who claims he ran to save democracy—are passively watching it slip from our hands.
Media Matters had run an explosive report about pro-Nazi hate speech published on X and ads for major corporations getting placed next to such content. Other X users confirmed the problem even as X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed any instances were rare and unintentional. That didn’t stop Musk from threatening “a thermonuclear lawsuit” against MMFA or Paxton from announcing a state investigation of the group—chilling moves against a free press that could cost Media Matters hundreds of thousands of dollars just to defend its very existence.
The legally challenged Paxton won’t be a Trump 47 attorney general, but someone like him—like frothing right-wing lawyer Mike Davis, who recently told a podcast that “we’re gonna detain a lot of people in the D.C. gulag and Gitmo”—will get the job, which will surely include the task of siccing the Justice Department on journalists Trump has declared “enemies of the people.”
It’s teeing up a dystopian world in which journalists who do not obey the party’s propaganda line could face increasingly severe consequences—perhaps far worse than the ordeal currently facing Media Matters. Verbal abuse, lawsuits, and harassment is only where it starts. If you want to see where treating a free press as the enemy ends, look to Gaza. And not only because the communications minister in the right-wing government of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening sanctions against that nation’s most critical newspaper, Haaretz—although there is that.
They say that truth is often the first casualty of war, but in southern Israel and Gaza the heartbreaking casualties have been the truth-tellers themselves, the journalists. After four Israeli journalists were brutally and unconscionably killed in the October 7 Hamas terror attack, Israel’s violent war of retaliations has not only caused the deaths of Palestinian men, women, and children by the thousands, but has also killed journalists at a pace not seen in any conflict in decades.
A stunning 53 Palestinian or Lebanese journalists have been killed since the war broke out, and the circumstances of at least several journalists and their family members obliterated by precision Israeli drone strikes on their homes or offices has done little to quiet suspicions that some media members are deliberately targeted. Indeed, last week the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders claimed the Reuters visuals journalist Issam Abdallah was deliberately attacked when he was killed in southern Lebanon on October 13 by shells fired from Israeli territory. Wrote the group also known by its French initials RSF: “Two strikes in the same place in such a short space of time (just over 30 seconds), from the same direction, clearly indicate precise targeting.” Israel denies targeting journalists.
Major U.S. newsrooms have been mostly tepid in condemning these outrageous, violent, and attacks of little precedent on press freedom, to the extent that it’s mentioned at all. Ditto the Biden administration, which has made protecting democracy its core argument for a second term and yet seems to view the real-world implications of the First Amendment as an afterthought, if not a hindrance.
Indeed, one report suggested that Team Biden agrees with its odd-couple ally the Netanyahu government in wanting the public to know as little as possible about the extent of the destruction and killing in Gaza. Politico reported last week that a Biden administration fear, in negotiating a temporary cease-fire, was that it “would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel.”
This kind of malarkey is what I find so alarming about our increasingly Orwellian present, and even dimmer future. It’s not just that the newest generation of chest-thumping strongmen are harnessing the electrons of the 21st century to hypercharge their modern Ministries of Untruth, but that the guardians of the actual truth—the newsroom grand poobahs, an American president who claims he ran to save democracy—are passively watching it slip from our hands.
After Niagara Falls, and Texas, and Gaza, it’s way past time for anyone to think that “it can’t happen here,” because it’s happening now. And the next 12 months may be our last chance to show that we are not going mad, that the people want the truth, and that we will stop fact-based journalism from sliding down Orwell’s memory hole for good.
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'Still No Justice' for Jamal Khashoggi, Advocates Say Five Years After Brutal Assassination
"Without meaningful accountability," said one advocate, "returning to business as usual after Khashoggi's murder will imperil free expression beyond Saudi Arabia."
Oct 02, 2023
Human rights advocates on Monday condemned the continued failure of international officials to hold accountable the people responsible for journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder—including those at the top of Saudi Arabia's government—as his former colleagues and loved ones marked the fifth anniversary of the brutal killing.
Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard was serving as the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions at the time of Khashoggi's murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, and authored a report in 2019 that stated his death was "a pre-meditated extrajudicial killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible."
On Monday, Callamard said that with European and U.S. officials having reopened diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, "the path to justice for his killing remains fully blocked."'
"Khashoggi's enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial execution are crimes under international law, which must be urgently investigated and may be prosecuted by any state through universal jurisdiction," said Callamard. "It is appalling that instead of pushing for justice for his murder, the international community continues to roll out the red carpet for Saudi Arabia's leaders at any opportunity, placing diplomatic and economic interests before human rights."
Two years after the U.N.'s analysis of Khashoggi's killing, the U.S. released an intelligence report showing that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally approved the murder, in which 15 high-level agents flew to Istanbul to carry out the "capture or kill" operation.
The release of the report signaled to many at the time that the Biden administration was prepared to hold the Saudi government to account for killing Khashoggi, who wrote critically about the repressive regime as a Washington Post columnist.
But as Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a nonprofit founded by Khashoggi, noted Monday, while some U.S. lawmakers have "maintained their commitment to accountability," the U.S. has since expanded arm sales and offered a security guarantee to the Saudis in exchange for normalized relations with Israel. British and French leaders have also reopened friendly relations with bin Salman, appearing to accept the crown prince's claim that unspecified individuals have been "prosecuted" for the killing.
"We need to connect the dots and understand that failing to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the extraterritorial murder of Khashoggi encourages other governments to believe that they too can get away with it, which is exactly what India's reported murder of a Canadian citizen this year demonstrates," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. "If democratic governments fail to protect journalists and activists living in their own countries from foreign attacks, our own press and societies will be the victims, and our own democracies will lose."
The group expressed gratitude for efforts by civil society groups and local governments to honor Khashoggi's memory and his family's fight for justice, including the unveiling of Jamal Khashoggi Square across from the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles on Monday evening. Whitson and DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar were scheduled to deliver remarks.
"Five years after this heinous crime, we persist in demanding justice and accountability from the Saudi government and are moved by the global efforts to commemorate Khashoggi's life and legacy," said Whitson. "If the Saudi government spent a fraction of the billions it is spending to sanitize its disastrous human rights record on real reforms and accountability, everyone—from Saudi citizens to people around the world—would be better off."
Lamenting that there is "still no justice" for the journalist, Amnesty reiterated its call "for an international, independent, and impartial investigation into Khashoggi's killing," with those responsible brought to justice in fair trials.
The group was among those noting that while the murder has been largely brushed aside by authorities around the world, the Saudi government is continuing its "relentless crackdown on freedom of speech with complete impunity," including a death sentence for a retired teacher in July over social media posts in which he criticized the human rights record and corruption of the kingdom.
"Five years after Jamal Khashoggi's brutal murder, there has been no justice and no meaningful accountability, with dire consequences for writers worldwide," said Justin Shilad, Middle East and North Africa research and advocacy lead for free expression advocacy group PEN America. "Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudis are being sentenced to death or decades in prison for social media posts. Beyond the kingdom's borders, the lack of justice in Khashoggi's case has laid the groundwork for transnational repression becoming institutionalized worldwide."
"Without meaningful accountability," said Shilad, "returning to business as usual after Khashoggi's murder will imperil free expression beyond Saudi Arabia."
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One Year On, the US Has Failed to Demand Justice for Shireen Abu Akleh
It is time for the U.S. to support an independent, thorough, and credible investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh and to take steps to hold the Israeli government to account for its human rights obligations.
May 11, 2023
Thursday will mark one year since Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, was shot and killed in the occupied West Bank while reporting on an Israeli army raid in Jenin refugee camp. The unconscionably unlawful killing, captured on film, of Abu Akleh by Israeli forces has gone unpunished. And, the Biden administration appears to have fallen in line with the Israeli government’s claims that “there is a high possibility that Ms. Abu Akleh was accidentally hit by IDF gunfire.”
The administration’s failure over the last year to support an independent, thorough, and credible investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh and to ensure the perpetrators are held to account shows the depth of the double standards permeating its human rights policies when it comes to key security partners. When the U.S. does not demand accountability from its allies for even the most egregious and documented examples of human rights harms, the likelihood that governments will continue violating human rights knowing that they can do so with impunity only increases.
The killing of Abu Akleh was not an isolated incident and must also be understood within the wider context of the Israeli government’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. Palestinians are regularly killed or injured—with impunity— as a result of the Israeli forces’ use of excessive force when policing protests or carrying out search and arrest raids. Notably, in the year since Abu Akleh’s death, the Jenin refugee camp has been at the center of the Israeli military’s escalating crackdown across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and its residents continue to be subjected to relentless military raids, which amount to collective punishment.
Abu Akleh’s killing and the inaction by the U.S. government to publicly call for an independent investigation and demand meaningful accountability stand as a stark reminder of its role in shielding the Israeli government from accountability more generally.
The unlawful killing of Palestinians and other violations committed by the Israeli authorities also serve to maintain the government’s system of apartheid over the Palestinian people. For decades, Israel has created and maintained laws, policies, and practices that deliberately oppress Palestinians to ensure Jewish Israeli domination across Israel, the OPT, and against Palestinian refugees denied the right to return to their homes. Amnesty International released a new report earlier this month detailing how the discriminatory use of facial recognition technology by the Israeli authorities in East Jerusalem and Hebron further entrenches this system of apartheid.
Abu Akleh’s killing and the inaction by the U.S. government to publicly call for an independent investigation and demand meaningful accountability stand as a stark reminder of its role in shielding the Israeli government from accountability more generally. It is reminiscent of how the U.S. has failed to hold the government of Saudi Arabia, another ally and security partner, accountable for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. permanent resident at the time of his death.
The cost of impunity is clear, as the human rights situation on the ground continues to further deteriorate amid an escalating military crackdown by the Israeli authorities. Until the Israeli authorities are held accountable for unlawful killings, like Abu Akleh’s, deadly attacks by the Israeli forces against Palestinians in the OPT will continue.
Amnesty International shares the Abu Akleh family’s call for an FBI investigation to be truly independent and thorough and for accountability to be taken to the top of the Israeli military’s chain of command. It is time for the U.S. administration to support an independent, thorough, and credible investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh and to take steps to hold the Israeli government to account for its human rights obligations.
Amnesty will continue to demand justice for Shireen Abu Akleh.
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'2022 Was Deadly': Killings of Journalists Jumped by Nearly 50%
The deadliest year for media workers since 2018 was driven in large part by the war in Ukraine and a rise in killings in Latin America.
Jan 24, 2023
Driven in large part by Russia's war in Ukraine and a rise in violence in Latin America, 2022 was the deadliest year for journalists in four years and saw nearly a 50% increase in murders, killings in crossfire, and deaths as the result of dangerous assignments, according to a report released Tuesday.
In its annual report on the killings of members of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) confirmed that at least 41 journalists and media workers were killed in direct connection to their work, including nearly two dozen who were murdered in retaliation for their work. The group is still investigating the motives for the killings to 26 other journalists, bringing the total number of media workers killed last year to 67.
Fifteen journalists were killed while covering the Ukraine war, including at least eight who were killed in crossfire during fighting between the Russians and Ukrainians. Thirteen of them were killed while reporting or gathering news about the war, which began last February.
Though no deaths of journalists on the ground in Ukraine have been reported since last May, the CPJ emphasized that the war zone is still dangerous for reporters; earlier this month at least three journalists were injured by shelling in Kyiv and Druzhkivka, a city in the eastern region of Donetsk.
"Journalists who risk their lives covering Russia's war in Ukraine are civilians under international humanitarian law and should be protected as such," said Gulnoza Said, CPJ's Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, after the shellings.
Combined with killings in Mexico and Haiti, those in Ukraine made up more than half of the 67 killings recorded by CPJ.
Out of 13 journalists killed in Mexico last year, three were confirmed to have been murdered in retaliation for their reporting, and three were officially being "protected" by state and federal protection mechanisms or were in the process of being enrolled in protection programs when they were killed.
The mechanisms "try to provide [journalists] with some degree of protection from the federal government," Jan-Albert Hootsen, Mexico representative for CPJ, told CBS News. "This is admittedly not ideal because even federal institutions in Mexico are not fully functional. They have their problems, they have their failings."
Across Latin America, 30 journalists were killed in 2022—nearly half the global total. At least 12 were confirmed to have been killed in direct relation to their work, "a reflection of the outsize risk journalists in the region face while covering topics such as crime, corruption, gang violence, and the environment," according to the CPJ.
As Common Dreams reported in July 2022, rights advocates were joined by nearly two dozen members of the U.S. Congress in demanding an impartial investigation into the murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, who were shot dead during a reporting trip regarding land defenders in the Brazilian Amazon.
Pirambu News founder Givanildo Oliveira was also killed in Brazil after publishing a report about a local man suspected of homicide, and following warnings not to report on criminal activity radio journalist Humberto Coronel was shot and killed in Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay. Coronel "sometimes denounced political corruption and the police force's alleged inability to solve crimes," according to CPJ, and months before his killing by an unidentified man, his colleague received a death threat saying he and Coronel "knew too much."
CPJ noted that the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank city of Jenin in May spotlighted "Israeli impunity." The Israeli military said last year that Abu Akleh was killed in an accidental exchange of gunfire and refused to cooperate with a U.S. probe into the killing. Multiple investigations by the U.S., United Nations, and human rights groups determined the Israel Defense Forces had killed the Al Jazeera journalist, either intentionally or unintentionally.
"Abu Akleh's murder was the latest example of Israeli impunity for crimes against the press," wrote Jennifer Dunham, editorial director for CPJ. "It came one year after Israeli forces bombed several buildings in the Gaza Strip housing media offices, including those of The Associated Press and Al Jazeera... In 2018, at least two other Palestinian journalists—Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein—were shot and killed while covering demonstrations in the Gaza Strip; a U.N. commission of inquiry later found that Israeli snipers 'intentionally' shot the two journalists."
"Israeli authorities have not clarified what investigations, if any, they undertook," wrote Dunham, "or whether anyone was brought to justice for the journalists' murders."
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Comedian Michelle Wolf Suggests Trump Would 'Be on My Side If I'd Killed a Journalist'
Hours after his dismissal of the CIA's findings regarding Saudis' murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump turned his attention to the comedian's months-old shredding of his administration at the WHCA dinner
Nov 20, 2018
Comedian Michelle Wolf offered a succinct, withering reply to President Donald Trump's early Wednesday attack on her by drawing attention back to his continued support for Saudi Arabia in the face of a report linking the kingdom to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi--after his clear attempt to distract from the matter.
After Trump claimed Wolf had "bombed so badly" in her viral remarks at the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner last year, Wolf suggested that the president would likely have come to her defense if she'd killed a journalist, as Saudi Arabia has admitted it did--with the CIA reporting that Trump ally Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) likely ordered the murder--instead of simply telling the truth about his administration.
Wolf's tweet also included a reference to First Lady Melania Trump's #BeBest campaign, aimed at combating bullying on social media.
The president's tweeted comments on Wolf came hours after he issued a two-page statement declaring that Saudi Arabia's admitted killing of Khashoggi is of no consequence as the U.S. continues supplying the kingdom with billions of dollars in weapons--remarks that were quickly denounced as "delusional" and "imbecilic" by critics.
While political observers expressed shock at the president's callous dismissal of the CIA's conclusion about MbS's involvement, Trump attempted to move on from the issue entirely by attacking Wolf's performance from half a year ago--until she directed attention back to Khashoggi's killing.
Wolf was far from the first comedian to roast a sitting president at the WHCA dinner, but her jokes about Trump's personal financial troubles, his lawyer's payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign, and the corporate media's complicity in the president's lies struck a chord with both the administration and the press--while Trump critics praised her scathing speech.
In an apparent response, the WHCA scrapped the traditional comedic roast this week and invited presidential biographer Ron Chernow to speak at next year's event, in a speech that's expected to touch on reporters' First Amendment rights--a move that led Wolf to denounce the organization as "cowards" while asserting that she "couldn't be prouder" of her performance.
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