Every year on 03 May, the world celebrates World Press Freedom Day, as declared by the United Nations General Assembly, reaffirming journalists’ right to report the truth without persecution and the international community’s commitment to ensuring their protection. This year, the World Press Freedom Day comes while journalists in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) are enduring the worst conditions in the history of journalism in the modern era. They have paid not only their own lives but also their families’ lives as a cost for their journalistic work, covering and livestreaming the ongoing crime of genocide committed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the Gaza Strip for over a year and a half.
For a year from 03 May 2024 to 03 May 2025, the IOF have continued their systematic and repeated targeting of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip, as part of their ongoing genocide. As a result, 74 more journalists were killed, some of whom were intentionally and directly targeted by the IOF, whether on duty wearing their clearly marked press uniforms or in their homes, which were bombed while they and their families were inside, simply because they were journalists. Additionally, other journalists have been killed in the IOF’s indiscriminate bombardment of civilian targets across the Gaza Strip, including facilities, institutions, houses, roads, and markets. Since 07 October 2023, 212 journalists have been killed, while 190 others have been injured.
For over a year and a half, Palestinian journalists and their institutions have turned into military targets for the IOF, who have relentlessly attacked them. All media institutions and outlets in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed and pursued Gaza’s journalists by directly killing them while on duty or in their homes. IOF have also blocked the entry of international journalists into the Gaza Strip, with the aim of obscuring the truth, conceal IOF’s war crimes committed in Gaza, falsify the facts, and convey their narrative to the world. All available data and figures indicate that the IOF’s targeting of journalists during the recent war was not accidental, but part of a systematic and repeated pattern aimed at erasing journalists and preventing their documentation of Israel’s genocidal acts. As a result, an unprecedented death toll among journalists in the Gaza Strip has been recorded worldwide, as documented by UN bodies and international press organizations in their reports. During this brutal war, journalists and their families have been subjected to all forms of abuse, including forced displacement, the destruction of their homes, incitement, direct death threats, arbitrary arrests, and torture. Like the rest of the civilian population, most journalists have been forcibly displaced from their houses and forced to work under extremely harsh conditions to convey their humanitarian message to the world about their people’s suffering.
In his testimony to PCHR’s staff, journalist Ibrahim Qanan, an Al-Ghad TV reporter, said:
“We are bodies without souls. The war has exhausted us, as we do not only endure death but also fatigue. We exert unimaginable efforts to convey our people’s suffering, particularly amid power outages, communication and internet disruptions, the daily challenges we face with our families, and the repeated displacement. The hardest part is that our families are displaced in tents that might be targeted, while we are not by their side due to our coverage of the incidents. We are constantly worried about our families being targeted. The IOF do not differentiate between one tent and another.”
Journalist ‘Abdullah Al-Attar shared his suffering with PCHR’s staff, saying:
“I was displaced more than once, from Rafah to Khan Younis to Deir al-Balah. I spent nine months in Deir al-Balah, where I stayed in the journalists’ tent at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. During this period, we were bombed several times, and many journalists were injured. I miraculously survived! In one of the attacks, my colleague, journalist Ali Al-Attar, was injured while he was beside me. Afterward, I returned to Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, where I stayed in the same tent I had been in before as Nasser Medical Complex houses about 50 tents for all Gaza’s journalists.”
Despite the legal protection provided by international law for journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in zones of armed conflict, considering them as civilians, the IOF have created flimsy pretexts to justify their killing and targeting. The IOF have launched a widespread incitement campaign against many journalists, publishing the names of some and accusing them of affiliation with Palestinians armed groups and involvement in military activities, as a prelude to target them.
Simultaneously, the IOF have launched a fierce campaign against journalists and media institutions in the West Bank, subjecting them to all forms of persecution and abuse. This includes shutting down media outlets, opening fire on journalists, arresting and bringing them to trial for their journalistic work, assaulting them, preventing them from covering incidents, imposing restrictions on their movement, and preventing them from reporting in occupied East Jerusalem.
In light of the above, PCHR:
- Calls on the international community to openly condemn the targeting of journalists, to exert pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to immediately stop these attacks, and to urgently provide international protection for civilians, including journalists, in the Gaza Strip. PCHR also urges the international community to exert pressure on Israel to stop its crimes, comply with the rules of international law, and provide protection for civilians.
- Calls on the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor to expedite the issuance of tangible measures to accomplish the investigation into the situation of the State of Palestine, including killings of journalists who pay their lives as a cost for exposing the truth especially that the victims in Palestine have long awaited justice and accountability.
- Calls upon the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to compel Israel to respect its obligations under international humanitarian law, particularly the principles of distinction and proportionality.
- Urges relevant international stakeholders, particularly the International Federation of Journalists and the United Nations mechanisms to promote and protect human rights, including the Special Rapporteurs on the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly, to monitor violations and take an appropriate stance on these incidents, especially regarding the direct targeting of journalists.
- Calls on the ICC Prosecutor and the UN Commission of Inquiry to visit the oPt and to take a clear, firm, and public stance on the IOF’s crimes against Palestinian civilians, including journalists, as these crimes are ongoing and recurrent.
- Urges the ICC to establish a digital platform for receiving testimonies, complaints, videos, and eyewitness affidavits related to the killing and targeting of journalists, similar to the mechanism implemented in Ukraine.
- Calls on the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression to scale up efforts to protect the right to freedom of opinion and expression and investigate crimes committed by IOF against journalists and media outlets in the oPt.
Video detailing Israeli attacks on journalists over the past 19 months:
