The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has accused the Israeli occupation of conducting the largest and most deliberate campaign of media extermination in modern history, targeting journalists and press institutions during two years of relentless war on Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and Jerusalem.
In a statement issued Tuesday, marking two years since the start of the war on Gaza, the syndicate urged governments, parliaments, and international organizations to pressure Israel to allow foreign and Arab journalists into Gaza, where access remains blocked.
“This is not just a war of bombs and bullets—it is a war against truth,” the statement read. “Two years ago, the occupation launched a calculated assault on Gaza, designed not only to destroy lives but to silence the press. Journalists were hunted, media offices were flattened, and cameras were torn from the hands of those who dared to document.”
The syndicate emphasized that it does not deal with statistics, but in lives lost. “We remember colleagues by name—people with families, dreams, and voices that were extinguished. We recall the final message sent before a missile struck, the last photo taken before the rubble fell, the last live broadcast interrupted by a cry: ‘We are being targeted. We are dying.’”
Over 252 journalists have been killed in the past two years, many alongside their families. Some were targeted while filming, others were assassinated for publishing the truth. Hundreds more were wounded—some lost limbs, others their sight—but none lost their commitment to truth. Many were abducted and held in solitary confinement for simply reporting or exposing crimes.
“This is not only a war on Gaza,” the syndicate declared, “but a war on the conscience of humanity, on the profession of journalism, and on the world’s right to know. The occupation is not just killing journalists—it is killing the story.”
The statement affirmed the syndicate’s role as the voice of those silenced, the lens of those whose cameras were shattered, and the cry of those who can no longer speak. “The scale of journalist killings in just two years amounts to the first and largest media genocide of our time. It is a moral disgrace for anyone who remains silent or equates the oppressor with the oppressed.”
The syndicate thanked international organizations that have stood with Palestinian journalists, especially the International Federation of Journalists, and called on others to take a stand: “It is time to support the silenced, the bereaved, and the wronged.”
Finally, the syndicate pledged to continue its legal, ethical, and journalistic fight to expose war crimes and hold those responsible for killing journalists accountable. It called for a global moral reckoning to preserve what remains of shared human dignity.
“To journalists everywhere,” the statement concluded, “do not let journalism be assassinated in Palestine—because if it dies here, it dies everywhere.”
