DaysofPal – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced on Tuesday that Israeli forces were responsible for almost half of all journalist killings worldwide over the past year, underscoring what the organization described as an unprecedented assault on media workers in Gaza.
According to RSF’s annual report, 67 journalists were killed globally between December 2024 and November 2025, a slight increase from the previous year’s tally of 66.
Israel alone accounted for 43 percent of these deaths, with 29 Palestinian reporters killed in Gaza, leading the group to label the Israeli military “the worst enemy of journalists.”
The deadliest attack documented by RSF took place on August 25, when a “double-tap” strike hit Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, killing five journalists, among them contributors to Reuters and the Associated Press.
Israel claimed the attack targeted a Hamas surveillance camera but provided no supporting evidence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later described the strike as a “tragic mishap.”
Palestinians and rights groups have long argued that Israel routinely strikes hospitals, schools, and other protected civilian sites while alleging Hamas presence without proof. RSF’s data shows that since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, nearly 220 journalists have been killed, making Israel the deadliest country for media workers for the third year in a row.
Israel has also barred international journalists from entering Gaza since the start of the war, instead allowing pro-Israel social media influencers into the enclave to produce content that minimizes hunger, displacement, and the lack of aid.
Human rights organizations say these restrictions, combined with the scale of journalist deaths, point to likely war crimes, as both journalists and hospitals are protected under international law.
RSF’s report also highlights Israel’s continued detention of media workers. Twenty Palestinian journalists remain imprisoned, making Israel the second-worst country in the world, after Russia, when it comes to detaining foreign journalists. Sixteen of those jailed were arrested in the past two years in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Philippe Leruth, former president of the International Federation of Journalists, warned that the systematic killing of reporters in Gaza represents “a double crime,” an attack on civilians and an assault on freedom of expression.
He stressed that journalists serve as essential witnesses to events on the ground, yet Israel enforces sweeping censorship while simultaneously targeting the very people documenting its actions.
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