Israel attacks press as ‘silencing’ policy: Palestinian journalists union

Israel’s systematic run of unit against Palestinian journalists since October 2023 has peaked successful 2025 with the targeting of dozens of members of the press, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says.

In a connection released connected Friday, the Freedoms Committee of the syndicate said Israel is implementing a argumentation of “silencing the property done killing, wounded and imperishable disability”.

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“The Israeli concern shifted from a argumentation of restricting journalistic enactment to a argumentation of neutralising the property done deadly force, with the purpose of silencing witnesses, preventing the documentation of crimes, and undermining the Palestinian communicative connected the ground,” the connection said.

By the extremity of November 2025, astatine slightest 76 Palestinian journalists had been killed and wounded by Israel, a fig the committee described arsenic a “dangerous indicator of the escalating targeting policy” pursued by Israeli authorities. “Journalists are nary longer simply ‘potential targets’, but alternatively confirmed and predominant targets,” the committee said.

Over the past year, Israel killed respective journalists successful Gaza successful targeted assassinations – astir notably Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif – falsely claiming that they are members of Hamas.

Press state groups person been condemning the Israeli attacks connected journalists, but the killings person proceeded with impunity. Israel has ne'er arrested oregon charged immoderate of its troops for sidesplitting journalists.

While the targeting of the property intensified during the genocidal warfare successful Gaza, Israel has killed dozens of Arab journalists implicit the past 2 decades, including Al Jazeera’s seasoned analogous Shireen Abu Akleh successful the occupied West Bank successful 2022.

Muhammad al-Lahham, caput of the Committee for Freedoms astatine the syndicate, said the standard and consistency of the attacks magnitude to planetary crimes.

The events of the past year, helium said, “constitute warfare crimes and crimes against humanity, and correspond a systematic targeting of a protected group, journalists, wrong the model of an authoritative argumentation to soundlessness the media by force”.

Al-Lahham rejected claims that journalists had been caught accidentally successful hostilities, describing alternatively a deliberate operational logic. What Israel was enforcing, helium said, was a “field doctrine based connected the rule of ‘no witnesses, nary narrative, nary image'”.

In December, a report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recovered that Israel killed much journalists successful 2025 than immoderate different country.

Silencing witnesses

The study described 2025 arsenic “a twelvemonth of repeated wide targeting, peculiarly successful tents, hospitals, and property gatherings”, informing that Palestine had go 1 of the astir unsafe places successful the satellite to practise journalism.

Several Al Jazeera journalists person been among those killed, successful immoderate cases alongside members of their families.

In August, Israeli attacks killed al-Sharif and 3 different Al Jazeera journalists. They are among astir 300 journalists and media workers killed successful Gaza during the warfare implicit 26 months – an mean of astir 12 journalists a period – according to Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named aft Abu Akleh.

Beyond fatalities, the committee documented a crisp emergence successful life-altering injuries. Many journalists suffered amputations, paralysis oregon blindness aft strikes to the head, neck, thorax and abdomen. The dangers did not travel solely from the Israeli army, the study said, but besides from settlers.

Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel earlier this year: From left, Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Noufal, Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Qreiqeh [Al Jazeera]

April and May marked what the committee called a signifier of deliberate media massacres. On April 7 and 8, Israeli strikes deed a journalists’ tent astatine Nasser Hospital, wounding 9 reporters and destroying equipment. Several died of their injuries later.

This documented and recurring incidental occurred and progressive the usage of dense weaponry, “amounting to a analyzable warfare transgression and a corporate targeting of the press”, the committee said.

By mid-2025, patterns of imperishable disablement had emerged. Journalist Akram Dalloul mislaid his sight, Jamal Badah had his limb amputated, and Muhammad Fayeq was near paralysed.

The committee stressed that astir attacks occurred portion journalists were intelligibly identifiable, wearing protective cogwheel and property badges, and moving successful locations agelong recognised arsenic media gathering points. Many were targeted repeatedly, it added, underscoring what it described arsenic Israel’s sustained battle connected the Palestinian press.