More than 700 relatives killed in Gaza as the Freedoms Committee warns of collective punishment and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, a report by the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate reveals.
A new report released Saturday by the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate reveals that Israeli forces have expanded their targeting of Palestinian journalists beyond killing, injuring, abducting, or obstructing media coverage.
According to the report, the pattern has escalated into a far more brutal and alarming phase: the deliberate killing of journalists’ family members in an apparent attempt to turn journalism into an existential burden paid for by children, spouses, and parents.
|Report: Escalating, Systematic Targeting of Palestinian Journalists|
Based on documentation by the Syndicate’s Freedoms Committee, the targeting of journalists’ families has become a systematic and recurring practice throughout 2023, 2024, and 2025.
Approximately 706 relatives of journalists in Gaza were killed during this period, with all available indicators showing that these incidents were not accidental or incidental to the broader conflict.
According to the committee’s monitoring, 436 relatives of journalists were killed in 2023, 203 in 2024, and 67 in 2025, despite mass displacement, forced relocation to tents, and overcrowded shelters.
The committee noted that one of the most recent incidents occurred just days ago, when—nearly two years after the Israeli airstrike on their home west of Khan Younis—the bodies of journalist Hiba al‑Abadla, her mother, and around 15 members of the Al‑Astal family were recovered from the rubble.
These figures, the committee stressed, mean that hundreds of children, women, and elderly people were killed solely because a member of their family worked in journalism—an egregious violation of fundamental humanitarian and legal norms.
Documented cases show that the targeting has taken multiple forms, including:
- Direct airstrikes on journalists’ homes, killing large numbers of family members.
- Entire families wiped out in single attacks.
- Journalists forced to witness the destruction of their own families.
- Bombing of displacement sites and tents where journalists’ families sought refuge.
- Repeated strikes on areas known to house journalists and their relatives, without effective warnings.
A Shift Toward Collective Punishment:
The Freedoms Committee stated that the targeting of journalists’ families marks a dangerous shift in Israel’s conduct, reflected in three levels:
- From individual to collective targeting: Journalists are no longer the sole target; their families have become instruments of pressure and collective punishment, in violation of the core principles of international humanitarian law.
- Turning journalism into a threat to private life: The message being sent is that journalism endangers not only the reporter but their entire social and family circle.
- Eroding the social environment that supports journalism: When families are targeted, communities become afraid to support or even stand near journalists, weakening the social protection that media workers rely on.
Psychological and Social Impact:
The committee emphasized that the consequences extend far beyond the death toll. Journalists who lost children, spouses, or parents are experiencing severe psychological trauma, family fragmentation, loss of safety, and in many cases, forced displacement or temporary cessation of work.
Many also carry a profound sense of guilt—an outcome the committee described as part of an organized psychological warfare strategy.
The committee added that the relative decline in the number of relatives killed in 2025 is linked to coercive factors, including mass displacement, the destruction of most homes, overcrowded shelters, and the dispersal of families, which reduced fixed addresses for targeting.
Still, the killing of 67 relatives of journalists under displacement conditions demonstrates that the targeting did not stop—it merely adapted to new realities.
Legal Dimension:
The Freedoms Committee stressed that targeting journalists’ families constitutes a fully formed crime under international law.
It violates the Geneva Conventions’ prohibition on targeting civilians, breaches the principles of distinction and proportionality, and amounts to collective punishment, which is explicitly banned under international humanitarian law.
The committee warned that these actions have severely undermined press freedom, created a hostile and dangerous working environment, isolated Palestinian media coverage, and forced journalists to operate under constant threat—an assault on the Palestinian public’s and the global public’s right to information.
The committee affirmed that these crimes will not expire with time and that Israel bears full legal responsibility. It added that international silence has emboldened the continuation of these violations.
The Syndicate called for an independent international investigation, urgent action from human‑rights and professional bodies at the local, regional, and international levels, and the establishment of international protection mechanisms for Palestinian journalists and their families. It also urged that these crimes be included in international legal accountability files.
Mohammad al‑Lahham, head of the Freedoms Committee, said the killing of journalists’ families between 2023 and 2025 clearly shows that Israel is waging a comprehensive war on truth—one that “does not distinguish between a camera and a child, or between a pen and a home.”
He added that the blood of journalists’ families will remain a living testament to the attempt to silence the Palestinian voice, and that truth will remain stronger than killing.
