DaysofPal – Newly released monitoring and documentation by the Freedoms Committee of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate paint a stark picture of how Palestinian journalists have been increasingly targeted since October 7, 2023.
Covering violations documented through the end of 2025, the data reveal that attacks on media workers evolved from intermittent abuses into a sustained and deliberate campaign, culminating in 2025 as the deadliest and most dangerous year for journalists in Palestine.
According to the committee’s findings, by the end of November 2025, at least 76 journalists had been injured, a figure described as a dangerous indicator of an evolving targeting doctrine. Journalists, the report notes, are no longer treated as incidental or potential victims of violence but have become confirmed and recurring targets.
In its annual report, the Syndicate stated that during 2025 the Israeli occupation moved from policies designed to restrict journalistic work to a strategy of “neutralizing” the press through lethal force. The objective, according to the committee, is to silence eyewitnesses, obstruct the documentation of violations, and suppress the Palestinian narrative on the ground.
The committee identified 2025 as the apex of deadly attacks on journalists in Palestine, characterizing the year as one of repeated mass targeting. Attacks frequently occurred in journalists’ tents, hospitals, and press gatherings.
Many strikes targeted vital areas of the body, including the head, neck, chest, and abdomen, resulting in amputations, blindness, paralysis, and other permanent disabilities. The sources of threat were often intertwined, involving the occupation army, settlers, drones, artillery shelling, and aerial bombardment.
A timeline included in the report shows that from January to March 2025, the bombing of journalists’ homes continued across the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, particularly in Jenin, Hebron, and Ramallah, journalists were injured by live ammunition.
During this period, the targeting expanded to include media offices and journalists inside residential neighborhoods, signaling a shift toward attacks based on personal identity rather than coverage activity alone.
April and May 2025 marked a phase of deliberate “media massacres.” The targeting of the journalists’ tent at Nasser Hospital on April 7 and 8 was identified as a pivotal moment.
Nine journalists were injured simultaneously, press equipment was destroyed, and several journalists later died from their wounds. The attack, carried out at a well-known media location using heavy weaponry, was a documented and recurring incident amounting to a complex war crime and collective targeting of the press.
In June 2025, further mass killings were recorded as journalists covered events in schools, hospitals, and public squares. By July and August, a new pattern emerged: injuries resulting in permanent disabilities.
Journalist Akram Dalloul lost his eyesight, Jamal Badah underwent leg amputation, and Muhammad Fayeq was left permanently paralyzed. Repeated head and neck injuries during this period indicated, according to the report, a deliberate pattern aimed at disabling rather than incidental harm.
From September through November 2025, the scope of violence widened. Bombardment intensified in the Gaza Strip, while settler attacks escalated across the West Bank, particularly in Beita and Hebron. These assaults included beatings, vehicular attacks, arson targeting journalists’ vehicles, and the destruction of press equipment.
Injuries were also recorded while journalists covered the olive harvest, an entirely civilian activity, highlighting a de facto convergence between military and settler violence.
Geographically, the report identified the Gaza Strip as the most dangerous place in the world for journalists, with Gaza City, Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat, Jabalia, and Rafah emerging as focal points of attacks. Journalists were repeatedly targeted in tents, hospitals, schools sheltering displaced people, and private homes. In the West Bank, attacks were concentrated in Jerusalem, Jenin, Nablus, Beita, Tulkarm, Hebron, and Ramallah.
The Syndicate stated that the methods of attack included direct beatings, live fire, tear gas and stun grenades, settler violence under army protection, reconnaissance and explosive drones, heavy airstrikes, artillery shells, rubber-coated bullets, and physical assaults using batons, rifle butts, and military vehicles.
Injuries were overwhelmingly concentrated in the head, resulting in severe bleeding, fractures, and vision loss, as well as the neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, and spine, leading to paralysis, amputations, and lifelong disabilities. The committee stressed that most attacks occurred while journalists were clearly identifiable, wearing protective vests and press badges, and working in locations known to be frequented by media professionals. Many journalists were targeted multiple times.
Concluding its report, the Committee for Freedoms warned that the targeting of journalists in Palestine constitutes a direct assault on truth and on freedom of opinion and expression, adding that the absence of accountability has encouraged the continuation of crimes against media workers.
Muhammad al-Lahham, head of the Committee for Freedoms at the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, said that the events of 2025 amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, representing a systematic assault on a protected civilian group. He described the policy as one aimed at erasing witnesses and narratives, stating that what is unfolding is not a series of isolated incidents but a field doctrine based on the principle of “no witnesses, no narrative, no image.”
Al-Lahham concluded that the targeting of journalists in Palestine has ceased to be accidental or circumstantial, becoming instead a structural element of the occupation’s military and security practices.
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