Netanyahu Greater Israel Zionist bloc's Gaza Genocide October 7th 2023, ongoing

[TonyGosling]

Killing your own people and blaming the enemy…

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?stor ... 0307309319

A week ago I posted on this page an admission by IDF Brigadier General Barak Hiram that he himself gave the orders to use tank’s fire in hostage situations in Kibbutz Be-eri. It becomes evidently clear that many of the Israeli casualties in Be-eri as well as other places, were the outcome of Israel prioritising killing Hamas militants over saving the lives of hostages (Hannibal Directive). In practice it was Israel that was responsible for many Israeli civilians fatalities and it is Israel reckless operation and deployment of tanks and anti tank missiles in hostages situation that is responsible for the devastation in Kibbutz Be-eri and other 7 October Gaza Ring theatres.

Disturbingly Israel then brought foreign press to these devastated scenes and pointing at Hamas barbarism knowing very well that it was the deployment of Israeli tanks, anti tank missiles and heavy machine-guns that was responsible for the carnage and the civilian’s death…

Today we learned that an Israeli battalion commander colonel Salman Habka died in Gaza yesterday. Colonel Habka was fighting in Be-eri on 7 October and he confirmed to Israeli Ynet that IDF Bri. Genn Barak Hiram gave him the order to shoot tank shells into the Kibbutz buildings.

“In an interview held after the battle in Be-eri in which he (Col Habka) participated, the late Habka said: ‘The tanks are here, the tanks are near us. I arrive in Be-eri under the command of Bri. Gen. Barak Hiram and the first thing he ordered me to do was to fire a shell inside a house. The first question that comes to your mind is if there are hostages there. We did all the preliminary actions before we decided to fire a shell into a house." (ynet 2/112023)

The question you may want to ask is what were those ‘preliminary actions,’ because many hostages were found dead after this tank’s shelling… around 83 Israelis died in Be-eri…

[TonyGosling]

'A Jewish woman, Dr. Naomi Wolf understands the concept of a chosen people. I share her words below. The chosen people that Jews and the church has been sold is a easily disproven lie.

https://www.facebook.com/zady.wardynski ... 5CJKMg2bWl



Dr. Naomi Wolf: "Okay, so I was challenged below: "Read the Bible!

God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people."

So....I may get crucified for this but I have started to say it -- most recently (terrified, trembling) to warm welcome in a synagogue in LA: Actually if you read Genesis Exodus and Deuteronomy in Hebrew -- as I do -- you see that God did not "give" Israel to the Jews/Israelites. We as Jews are raised with the creed that "God gave us the land of Israel" in Genesis -- and that ethnically 'we are the chosen people." But actually -- and I could not believe my eyes when I saw this, I checked my reading with major scholars and they confirmed it -- actually God's "covenant" in Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy with the Jewish people is NOT ABOUT AN ETHNICITY AND NOT ABOUT A CONTRACT. IT IS ABOUT A WAY OF BEHAVING.

Again and again in the "covenant" language He never says: "I will give you, ethnic Israelites, the land of Israel." Rather He says something far more radical - far more subversive -- far more Godlike in my view. He says:

“IF you visit those imprisoned...act mercifully to the widow and the orphan...welcome the stranger in your midst...tend the sick...do justice and love mercy ....and perform various other tasks...THEN YOU WILL BE MY PEOPLE AND THIS LAND WILL BE YOUR LAND.” So "My people" is not ethnic -- it is transactional.

We are God's people not by birth but by a way of behaving, that is ethical, kind and just. And we STOP being "God's people" when we are not ethical, kind and just. And ANYONE who is ethical, kind and just is, according to God in Genesis, "God's people." And the "contract" to "give" us Israel is conditional -- we can live in God's land IF we are "God's people" in this way -- just, merciful, compassionate. AND -- it never ever says, it is ONLY your land. Even when passages spell out geographical "boundaries" as if God does such a thing, it never says this is exclusively your land.

It never says I will give this land JUST to you. Remember these were homeless nomads who had left slavery in Egypt and were wandering around in the desert; at most these passages say, settle here, but they do not say, settle here exclusively. Indeed again and again it talks about welcoming "zarim" -- translated as "strangers" but can also be translated as "people/tribes who are not you" -- in your midst. Blew my mind, hope it blows yours."- Dr. Naomi Wolf

It’s all about ‘Covenanted people’ always has been. Always will be. If you agree to walk in all of God’s Covenants, then you will be one of His people. Be blessed '

[TonyGosling]

News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World

Journalist Nick Turse (Fellow, Type Media Center) examines how, since the 2000s, national governments and terrorist groups – from Israel, Syria’s Assad regime and the United States to the Islamic State – have found ways to curtail conflict coverage through myriad means, from repressive policies to armed attack. All have killed journalists and helped to foster a culture of impunity, turning conflict zones like Syria and Gaza into “news graveyards.”
War Reporters Killed

The war in Gaza has, since October 7, 2023, killed more journalists than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.

Worldwide, threats to journalists in conflict zones are increasing. In 2023, a journalist or media worker was, on average, killed or murdered every four days. In 2024, it was once every three days. Most reporters harmed or killed, as is the case in Gaza, are local journalists.

Not only do local reporters face great risk, standing alone in the face of extraordinary violence; this also impairs news coverage and, as a result, the worldwide information ecosystem. The decreasing number of experienced foreign correspondents in conflict zones, due to long term shifts in the global news industry that have led to the de-prioritization of international news coverage and the closure of foreign news bureaus, has likewise crippled critical knowledge and helped facilitate the creation of news graveyards. Reliable information about wars and conflicts is essential for the wellbeing of local populations and is necessary to enlighten the world on the forces behind wars and the toll on civilians.




1
News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World

https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/pap ... nger-world

https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/sit ... 4-2-25.pdf

Nick Turse1
April 1, 2025
“Every journalist killed or neutralized by terror is an observer less of the human condition.
Every attack distorts reality by creating a climate of fear and self-censorship.”2
Table of Contents
Summary 2
Part I
Introduction: A War on War Reporters 4
The War on Gaza, the Toll on Journalists: October 7, 2023 to the Present 6
War Reporting: Risky But Essential 11
Danger to War Reporters: A Brief History 14
Part II
The News Industry’s Downward Spiral and the Fall of the Foreign
Correspondent 23
Risky Business: Local Reporters Face Greatest Dangers 30
Preventing News Graveyards: Gaza and Beyond 34
1 Nick Turse is a fellow of the Type Media Center and was previously an Ochberg Fellow at the Dart Center for
Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has reported on civilian
harm in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and from conHlict zones across Africa, including the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Somalia, and South Sudan.
2 James, B. (2002). Press freedom: Safety of journalists and impunity. UNESCO Publications.
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/Hil ... on-safety-
journalists_en.pdf
2
Summary
Threats to journalists in con2lict zones are increasing at a time when journalism is
under unprecedented threat and the news industry is mired in a decades-long downward
spiral. Since the 2000s, national governments and terrorist groups – from Israel, Syria’s
Assad regime and the United States to the Islamic State – have found ways to curtail con2lict
coverage through myriad means, from repressive policies to armed attack. All have killed
journalists and helped to foster a culture of impunity, turning con2lict zones like Syria and
Gaza into “news graveyards.” The war in Gaza has, since October 7, 2023, killed more
journalists than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War
(including the con2licts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and
2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined. It is, quite simply, the worst ever
con2lict for reporters.3
Figure 1. Number of Journalists and Media Workers Killed, By War4
3 More journalists, in total, have been killed in the Iraq War than in war in Gaza since October 7, 2023 but the
death tolls are not comparable. From the U.S. invasion on March 19, 2003 through March 26, 2025, 285
journalists and media workers were killed in Iraq – roughly 13 per year. In Gaza, 232 were killed between
October 7, 2023 and March 26, 2025, an average of around 13 killed each month. Committee to Protect
Journalists database. https://cpj.org/data/; Hussein, M. A., & Duggal, H. (2025, January 7). Know their names:
The Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza.
AlJazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/long ... lestinian-
journalists-killed-by-israel-in-gaza.
4 “Media workers” include support personnel without whom journalism wouldn’t exist, including translators,
drivers, and so-called Hixers. AlJazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/long ... 2/31/know-
their-names-the-palestinian-journalists-killed-by-israel-in-gaza; Committee to Protect Journalists database;
Forste, S. (2006, May 31). Iraq journalist deaths match number killed during Vietnam War. Committee to
Protect Journalists. https://cpj.org/2006/05/iraq-journalist ... ed-during/; Freedom
Forum. Journalists Memorial. https://www.freedomforum.org/journalists-memorial/.
3
Most reporters harmed or killed, as is the case in Gaza, are local journalists. The
world increasingly relies on these often underpaid, under-resourced, and under-equipped
journalists to carry out the most dangerous types of coverage as the number of Western
foreign correspondents dwindles. This outsourcing of risk not only imperils the lives of
local reporters, leaving them to stand alone in the face of extraordinary violence, but
impairs news coverage and, as a result, the worldwide information ecosystem.
The decreasing number of experienced foreign correspondents in con2lict zones has
crippled critical knowledge and helped facilitate the creation of news graveyards. In Gaza,
for example, the Israeli government’s ban on foreign reporters, coupled with its
unrestrained killing of Palestinian reporters, means there are far fewer journalists skilled at
translating the news out of Gaza to the American public. This is especially problematic since
the U.S. approved around $18 billion in security assistance for Israeli military operations in
Gaza and elsewhere in the year following October 2023.5
At a Glance
Journalists killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023: 147 - 2326
Journalists killed in Gaza, 2023-2025 versus killed during World Wars I & II: 232 vs. 697
Journalists killed worldwide (in and out of con2lict zones), 2000 to present: 1,683 – 2,0008
Abuses (incl. detentions and forced disappearances) of journalists, 2000 to present: 5,2339
Newspaper journalism jobs in the United States that have disappeared since 2005: 43,00010
U.S. newspapers lost since 2005: ~3,30011
5 Bilmes, L. J., Hartung, W. D., & Semler, S. (2024, October 7). United States spending on Israel’s military
operations and related U.S. operations in the region, October 7, 2023 – September 30, 2024. Costs of War,
Watson Institute, Brown University.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/pap ... dingIsrael
6 The International Federation of Journalists counts 147 journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, while
an Al Jazeera investigation counts 222 killed as of December 26, 2024. Costs of War added 10 journalists
killed between Dec. 27, 2024 and March 26, 2025, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, for a
total of 232 journalists and media workers killed. Hussein, M. A., & Duggal, H. (2025, January 7). Know their
names: The Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza; Al Jazeera.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/long ... urnalists-
killed-by-israel-in-gaza Committee to Protect Journalists. (2025, March 26). Database of attacks.
https://cpj.org/data/killed/2025/?statu ... eUnconHirm
ed%5B%5D=UnconHirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&type%5B%5D=Media%20Worker&cc_Hips%5B%5D=I
S&start_year=2025&end_year=2025&group_by=location
7 The Freedom Forum “Journalists Memorial” database counts two reporters killed in World War I, between
1914-1918, and 67 reporters killed in World War II – 66 between 1939 to 1945 and one who died after the
war years from war-related causes. https://www.freedomforum.org/journalists-memorial/
8 Includes media workers. The United Nations Educational, ScientiHic and Cultural Organization or UNESCO
counts 1,683 journalists killed, worldwide, since 2000. The Committee to Protect Journalists counts 2,000.
9 “Abuses” include all those killed, detained, taken hostage, or disappeared. Reporters Without Borders. Total
of victims of abuses data. https://rsf.org/en/barometer?annee_star ... #exaction-
victimes. Journalists are listed only if their death or imprisonment was conHirmed as linked to their
journalistic activity.
10 Metzger, Z. (2024, October 23). The State of Local News: The 2024 Report. Medill School of Journalism, The
State of Local News Project. https://localnewsinitiative.northwester ... -of-local-
news/2024/report/
11 Metzger, Z. (2024, October 23).
4
Part I
Introduction: A War on War Reporters
In December 2023, Al Jazeera journalists Samer Abudaqa and Wael Dahdouh were
reporting on the bombing of a school serving as a shelter for displaced Gazans when the
Israeli military attacked again. Dahdouh – who lost his wife, son, daughter and grandson in
a previous Israeli bombing and another son, a fellow Al Jazeera reporter, to a drone attack –
was wounded but escaped to a nearby hospital. Bleeding and unable to move, Abudaqa was
trapped.12
Pinned down by bombardment and without clearance from the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF), rescue teams could not reach Abudaqa. As minutes and then hours ticked
away, Al Jazeera posted a live counter on its broadcast, displaying the elapsed time since the
cameraman had been wounded. Fellow journalists pressed the Israeli military to facilitate
an evacuation. Jonathan Dagher, the head of the Middle East desk at Reporters Without
Borders (known by its French acronym RSF) appeared on Al Jazeera to call on Israeli
authorities to allow 2irst responders to save Abudaqa. More than 2ive hours after he was
wounded, medics 2inally reached him. It was too late. Abudaqa had bled out.13
More than a decade ago, war reporting was altered by the con2lict in Syria as
journalists were repeatedly targeted, kidnapped, and killed in the course of their work.
Since then, the situation for con2lict reporters has only deteriorated. The collective toll of
the 2023 war in Gaza, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and con2licts across Africa and Asia
coupled with worsening impunity on the part of governments, failures to hold the killers,
abusers, and jailors of journalists to account, attacks by militant groups, a maelstrom of
12 Al Jazeera. (2024, November 12). National Press Club hands Al Jazeera’s Wael Dahdouh press freedom
award. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/ ... eras-wael-
dahdouh-press-freedom-award#ixzz8u3srdNsG; Al Jazeera. (2023, December 16). Al Jazeera to refer
journalist Samer Abudaqa’s killing to ICC. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/ ... -to-refer-
journalist-samer-abudaqas-killing-to-icc; Salhani, J. (September 23). Israel is deliberately targeting journalists
in Gaza: Experts. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/2 ... targeting-
journalists-in-gaza-experts; AlsaaHin, M. (2023, December 15). “Aljazeera Arabic have a live counter (5 hours
and 20 minutes) of how long it's been since cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa was injured by an Israeli drone
strike.” X.com 12:16 PM. https://x.com/malsaaHin/status/17357104 ... mssVC9USl-
l4VmlgM0SCRQ;
Sharif Abdel Kouddous, (2024, January 12). Israel Bombed an Al Jazeera Cameraman — and Blocked
Evacuation Efforts as He Bled to Death. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/al-jazeera-
journalist-israel-gaza/
13 Al Jazeera. (2023, December 16). Al Jazeera to refer journalist Samer Abudaqa’s killing to ICC.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/ ... ing-to-icc
Salhani, J. (2024, September 23). Israel is deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza: Experts. Al Jazeera.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/2 ... za-experts
AlsaaHin, M. (2023, December 15). “Aljazeera Arabic have a live counter (5 hours and 20 minutes) of how long
it's been since cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa was injured by an Israeli drone strike.” X.com 12:16 PM.
https://x.com/malsaaHin/status/17357104 ... VmlgM0SCRQ;
Abdel Kouddous, S. (2024, January 12). Israel Bombed an Al Jazeera Cameraman — and Blocked Evacuation
Efforts as He Bled to Death. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/al- ... st-israel-
gaza/
5
misinformation, and the continued economic freefall of the news industry have left war
reporters more imperiled than any time in the history of the profession.
War is a growing threat for an already perilous occupation. Across the world in
2023, a journalist or other media worker was, on average, killed or murdered every four
days.14 In 2024, it was once every three days. More journalists were killed in 2024 than in
any other year since the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) began tallying reporters’
deaths three decades ago.15 The United Nations says journalism is one of the
most dangerous professions in the world.16
No one knows how many reporters have been killed doing their jobs. This report
compiles information from nonpro2it monitoring organizations and investigative reporters
to provide an overview of the costs of war to journalists and journalism.17 Available counts
are fragmentary and deaths of non-Western journalists, especially prior to the 1990s, are
largely undocumented. But Reporters Without Borders counts 1,668 journalists killed in
connection with their work between 2003 and 2022.18 Almost 35 percent were
concentrated in two long war-torn countries – Iraq and Syria – followed by con2lict-plagued
Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, and Somalia.19 Last year, more than 60 percent of all
journalists slain were killed in con2lict areas (versus those who died outside of war zones),
the highest percentage in more than a decade, according to the United Nations.20 These war
14 One hundred and one journalists and other media support workers (translators, drivers, Hixers, security
guards, and administrative workers) were killed, whatever the motive, in 2023. CPJ conHirmed that 92 were
likely killed because of their journalism.
https://cpj.org/data/killed/2024/?statu ... eUnconHirm
ed%5B%5D=UnconHirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&type%5B%5D=Media%20Worker&start_year=2023&
end_year=2023&group_by=location
15 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2025, February 12). 2024 is deadliest year for journalists in CPJ history;
almost 70% killed by Israel - Committee to Protect Journalists. https://cpj.org/special-reports/2024-is-
deadliest-year-for-journalists-in-cpj-history-almost-70-percent-killed-by-israel/
16 Kibaba, M. (2019, September 18) Journalism – one of the most dangerous professions in the world. World
Press Institute.
https://worldpressinstitute.org/journal ... the-world/
17 The report’s numbers of deaths include journalists and media workers, deHined as reporters, editors,
photojournalists, columnists, publishers, photographers, video directors, analysts, sound engineers, voiceover
artists, and founders of media outlets. The number of journalist deaths in World Wars I and II relies, for
example, on the work of The Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) foundation “dedicated to fostering
First Amendment freedoms for all.” This count includes journalists who were also members of armed forces,
like Technical Sergeant Paul V. Connors of the United States, who was killed while reporting in 1945. The
Higures for the war in Gaza rely on information from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an
independent nonproHit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide, and the reporting of Al Jazeera.
18 Reporters Without Borders. (2022). 1,668 journalists killed in past 20 years (2003-2022), average of 80 per
year) Reporters Without Borders https://rsf.org/en/1668-journalists-kil ... 2003-2022-
average-80-year
19 Reporters Without Borders (2022). 1,668 journalists killed in past 20 years (2003-2022), average of 80 per
year. https://rsf.org/en/1668-journalists-kil ... ge-80-year
20 UNESCO. (2025). Journalists killed in 2024: a heavy death toll in conYlict zones for the second year running.
https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/jour ... cond-year-
running#:~:text=UNESCO%20reports%20that%20at%20least,in%20more%20than%20ten%20years.
6
zone deaths – in Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine – marked a 2ive-year
high.21
Attacks on journalists have exacerbated long term socio-economic shifts that have
crippled the global news industry over decades and led to the de-prioritization of
international news coverage and the closure of foreign news bureaus. In the United States,
this 2inancial freefall in journalism has led to almost two thousand “news deserts” –
counties with one or no local newspapers. Across the globe, the economics of the industry,
the violence of war, and coordinated censorship campaigns threaten to turn an increasing
number of con2lict zones into news graveyards, with Gaza being the most extreme example.
“Without a solid basis in deeply reported, well-sourced facts from around the globe as a
counterweight to the social media-driven 2lood of narratives, opinion, and disinformation, it
becomes ever more dif2icult to have an informed public debate about foreign-policy
choices,” observed longtime war correspondent, Janine di Giovanni.22
The War on Gaza, the Toll on Journalists: October 7, 2023 to the Present
The recent spike in journalists’ deaths has been fueled by the unprecedented toll of
the con2lict in Gaza since October 2023. After years of resentment over international
coverage of its wars with Hamas, the Israeli government has unleashed an unrelenting war
on the press. Since October 2023, Israel has barred independent foreign correspondents
from Gaza while killing local journalists in record numbers – and without any
repercussions.
Thirty-seven journalists were slain in the Gaza Strip during the 2irst month of the
2023 Gaza War, making it the deadliest month documented by the Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ) since it began collecting data in 1992. “The Israeli army has killed more
journalists in 10 weeks than any other army or entity has in any single year,” said Sherif
Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, in December 2023. “And
with every journalist killed, the war becomes harder to document and to understand.”23
As of March 26, 2025, at least 232 journalists and media workers had been killed in
Gaza since the war began, according to an Al Jazeera investigation and recent updates from
the Committee to Protect Journalists.24 That con2lict has killed more journalists in a year
21 Reporters Without Borders. (2024). RSF Round-up 2024: Journalists killed, detained, held hostage, and
missing. https://rsf.org/sites/default/Hiles/med ... 4%20EN.pdf
22 The type of news and the source, of course, matters. A sophisticated study of the media and the Iraq War
found that paying close attention to the news was no guarantee of being better informed. For those who
followed the news very closely but relied on FOX News, 80 percent had the misperception that close links
between al Qaeda and Iraq had been found. Those who followed print news were less likely to misunderstand
events. Kull, S., Ramsay, C., & Lewis, E. (2003). Misperceptions, the media, and the Iraq War. Political Science
Quarterly, 118(4), 569–598. Di Giovanni, J. (2021e, March 19). The Decline of Foreign Reporting Spells Worse
Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/15/hi ... spondents-
media-press-journalism-war-reporting-photography/
23 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2023, December 21). Israel-Gaza war takes record toll on journalists.
https://cpj.org/2023/12/israel-gaza-war ... urnalists/
24 For citations see footnote 6.
7
than any other con2lict recorded by CPJ.25 The vast majority slain were Palestinians; six
were Lebanese. Two were Israeli journalists killed by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023,
alongside more than 1,200 people.26 Almost 380 journalists in Gaza have also been
wounded as of January 2025, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.27
As of late June 2024, nine months into the 2023 Gaza war, an analysis from Arab
Reporters for Investigative Journalism and The Intercept found that 1 in 10 journalists in
Gaza had been killed by the Israeli military.28 The death toll of Palestinian journalists is
roughly equivalent to the killing of 8,500 U.S. newsroom employees.29 By comparison, the
total number of reporters killed in Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, for
example, stands at 19. Since that war of2icially began in 2014, CPJ counts 29 journalist
deaths in Ukraine due to cross2ire, dangerous assignments, murder, and all other causes.
It's unclear how many Palestinian reporters in Gaza have been intentionally killed
because of their work and how many were simply the victims, like tens of thousands of
fellow civilians, of Israel’s bombardment of a densely populated 140-square mile strip of
land. But there have been at least 35 cases since October 2023 where there is enough
information to con2irm the journalists killed were directly targeted by Israel because of
their work, according to RSF.30
25 Hussein, M. A., & Duggal, H. (2025, January 7). Know their names: The Palestinian journalists killed by Israel
in Gaza. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/long ... names-the-
palestinian-journalists-killed-by-israel-in-gaza; Fahmy, S., Salama, M., & Alsaba, M. (2024). Shattered lives,
unbroken stories: journalists’ perspectives from the frontlines of the Israel–Gaza war. Online Media and Global
Communication, 3(2).
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... sts'_persp
ectives_from_the_frontlines_of_the_Israel-Gaza_war; Committee to Protect Journalists. (2025, January
. Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war. https://cpj.org/2025/01/journalist-casu ... he-israel-
gaza-conHlict/
26 Other counts list four Israeli journalists killed by Hamas in the October 7, 2023 attacks. United Nations:
Regional Information Centre for Western Europe. (2024, June 2). Gaza: UN experts condemn killing and
silencing of journalists. https://unric.org/en/gaza-un-experts-co ... encing-of-
journalists/#:~:text=According%20to%20UN%20reports%2C%20since,in%20the%207%20October%20att
acks%20; Fahmy, S., Salama, M., & Alsaba, Mona. (2024). Shattered lives, unbroken stories: journalists’
perspectives from the frontlines of the Israel–Gaza war. Online Media and Global Communication, 3(2).
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... sts'_persp
ectives_from_the_frontlines_of_the_Israel-Gaza_war Committee to Protect Journalists. (2025, January
. Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war. https://cpj.org/2025/01/journalist-casu ... he-israel-
gaza-conHlict/; Gorani, H. & Sowden, B. (2024, September 27). Israel-Hamas war in Gaza the deadliest on
record for journalists who describe killings, attacks and arrests. NBC News.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/isra ... rcna172282
27 Data provided by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate on January 9, 2025. Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.
(2023-2024). Silencing Voices: The Plight of Palestinian Journalists Detained by Israeli Occupation during
Ongoing Israeli Aggression on Gaza 2023/2024. https://pjs.ps/Hile/attachs/990.pdf
28 Osman, H., Taweel, F., & Jallad, F. (2024, June 27). Israel’s War on Gaza Is the Deadliest ConHlict on Record for
Journalists. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2024/06/25/isr ... ts-killed/
29 Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. (2024, April 19). Journalists in Gaza Call on US Journalists to Boycott White
House Correspondents' Dinner. https://www.pjs.ps/ar/page-3100.html
30 Reporters Without Borders. (2024, December 12). RSF’s 2024 Round-up: journalism suffers exorbitant
human cost due to conYlicts and repressive regimes. https://rsf.org/en/rsf-s-2024-round-journalism-suffers-
8
Reporters in Gaza have also been left to cover the war alone. Roughly 4,000
international journalists have been provided press accreditation to work in Israel since
October 2023. This allowed journalists access to Israel and the West Bank but only a
handful of foreign reporters – most notably CNN's Clarissa Ward – were able to enter Gaza
to independently cover the con2lict.31 “This is exactly what Syria tried to do,” said longtime
con2lict journalist Anand Gopal, noting that Sri Lanka also employed a media blackout to
avoid scrutiny during its atrocity-2illed civil war which ended in 2009. “It seems like a
playbook – and I think it sets a really dangerous precedent.” Despite pleas from more than
70 news outlets and civil society organizations, Israel consistently rebuffed calls to grant
independent press access to Gaza.32 The only other permitted press trips to Gaza during the
2023 war have been via IDF-controlled embeds where the military restricts what reporters
can see and cover.33
In addition to killing local reporters and restricting foreign journalists, Israel has
employed a full spectrum effort to undermine the free 2low of information. “There has been
a near total destruction of media of2ices in Gaza, of media infrastructure, of equipment, the
cutoffs of internet and power, and the media blockade that forbids journalists from leaving
Gaza, with only a few exceptions,” said Jonathan Dagher of RSF. “And the lucky few that have
left have no chance of return.”34 Israel has destroyed approximately 90 press facilities in
Gaza since October 2023, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.35 Almost all
the journalists in Gaza have also been displaced several times. Some have been arrested and
tortured.36
Palestinian reporters who have, at great personal risk, continued to work in Gaza
have been victimized by targeted smear campaigns, accusing them of aiding combatants or
exorbitant-human-cost-due-conHlicts-and-repressive-regimes. Salhani, J. (2024b, September 23). Israel is
deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza: Experts. Al Jazeera.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/2 ... za-experts
31 CNN’s Clarissa Ward was the Hirst foreign journalist who made it into Gaza without the army, and she did
this by accompanying an aid convoy supported by the United Arab Emirates in December 2023. Ward, C.,
Swails, B., McWhinnie, S., Clarke, R. (2023, December 14). Looking into the eyes of an orphan in Gaza. CNN
World. During this two-hour trip to Rafah, where 2.3 million residents are now based, the area was bombed
and she Hilmed operations in a Hield hospital and talked to doctors and injured children. Salhani, J. (2024,
September 23). Israel is deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza: Experts. Al Jazeera.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/2 ... za-experts
wbur. (2023, December 28). Reporter’s notebook: Rare independent access into Gaza. WBUR.org.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/12 ... ebook-gaza
Murrell, C. (n.d.). How Israel continues to censor journalists covering the war in Gaza. The Conversation.
https://theconversation.com/how-israel- ... aza-228241
32 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2024, August 19). Media organizations urge Israel to open access to Gaza.
https://cpj.org/2024/07/media-organizat ... s-to-gaza/
33 Murrell, C. (n.d.-b). How Israel continues to censor journalists covering the war in Gaza. The Conversation.
https://theconversation.com/how-israel- ... aza-228241
34 Jonathan Dagher, interview with Nick Turse. (2024, October 24).
35 Data provide by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate on January 9, 2025. Reiff, B. (2024, June 26). Tracing
attacks on Gaza’s press buildings. +972 Magazine. https://www.972mag.com/gaza-press-attacks-israeli-
army/
36 Reporters Without Borders. (2024, September 1). 31 Palestinian journalists currently held in Israeli prisons
in record wave of detentions. https://rsf.org/en/31-palestinian-journ ... i-prisons-
record-wave-detentions
9
having participated in the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.37 Palestinian news
organizations and individual journalists have also been repeatedly subjected to
cyberattacks.38 The Palestinian digital rights organization 7amleh has also documented
censorship of Palestinian commentators on social media, including suspension of accounts
and content blockage.39 “The attacks on media in Gaza and restrictions on other journalists
from accessing Gaza, combined with severe disruptions of the Internet, are major
impediments to the right of information of the people of Gaza as well as the outside world,”
according to a U.N. panel of experts.40
Israel’s censorship regime also includes the employment of mis- or dis-information
which bogs down the journalistic process, thwarting timely and accurate reporting. The
Gaza Health Ministry, for example, said a February 2024 Israeli attack on aid delivery in
Gaza – the “Flour Massacre” – killed 100 people and injured 700 more. Mark Regev, the
Israeli prime minister’s special adviser, initially told CNN that Israeli forces were not
involved.41 Then Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a top IDF spokesman, said Israeli soldiers had
only 2ired “warning shots” in the air.42 It took CNN more than a month to piece together
evidence from eyewitness testimonies and dozens of videos to debunk Israel’s of2icial
narrative.43
The situation in Gaza is only the most egregious example of the danger facing
journalists and journalism, today. Globally, one hundred and twenty-two journalists and
media workers were killed in 2024, 43 percent of them outside of Gaza and Lebanon,
according to the International Federation of Journalists.44 Last year, for instance,
37 Reporters Without Borders. (2024, May 11). Ismail al-Ghoul’s killing: targeted and discredited, Palestinian
journalists suffer double punishment in Gaza. https://rsf.org/en/ismail-al-ghouls-kil ... geted-and-
discredited-palestinian-journalists-suffer-double-punishment Reporters Without Borders. (2023, October
11). Israeli politicians call for journalists in Gaza to be killed. https://rsf.org/en/israeli-politicians-call-
journalists-gaza-be-killed
38 Mandour, M., Daoud, D., Culebras, I. M. D., & Alsharif, S. (2024b, November 15). Attacks, arrests, threats,
censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war. Committee to Protect Journalists.
https://cpj.org/2024/10/attacks-arrests ... ael-hamas-
war/#hostile-cyberattacks
39 7amla. (2023, October 19). 7amleh’s “Violence Indicator” documents 103,000 instances of hate speech and
incitement against Palestinians on social media. ﺣﻤﻠﺔ-اﻟﻤﺮﻛﺰاﻟﻌﺮﺑﻲﻟﺘﻄﻮﯾﺮاﻹﻋﻼماﻻﺟﺘﻤﺎﻋﻲ .
https://7amleh.org/2023/10/19/7amleh-s- ... s-of-hate-
speech-and-incitement-against-palestinians-on-social-media
40 Ukteam. (2024, February 6). Gaza: UN experts condemn killing and silencing of journalists. United Nations:
Regional Information Centre for Western Europe. https://unric.org/en/gaza-un-experts-condemn-killing-
and-silencing-of-journalists/
41 Amanpour. (2024, February 29). Amanpour questions top Netanyahu adviser on deadly aid incident. CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2024/02/2 ... -regev.cnn
42 Israel Defense Forces. (2024, February 29). IDF Statement Regarding Humanitarian Convoy in Gaza [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrv-wnJHdgM
43 Polglase, K., Mahmood, Z., Dahman, I. & MezzoHiore, G. (2024, April 10). Dying for a bag of Hlour: Videos and
eyewitness accounts cast doubt on Israel’s timeline of deadly Gaza aid delivery. CNN.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/09/midd ... ness-intl-
investigation-cmd
44 Most of the journalists killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023 died that same year. Hussein, M. A., & Duggal, H.
(2025, January 7). Know their names: The Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza. Al Jazeera.
10
photographer Anas Alkharboutli was killed in an airstrike near the city of Hama in Syria
while covering the rebel offensive that ultimately overthrew longtime autocrat Bashar al-
Assad’s regime in Syria.45 A Turkish drone strike in Iraq killed journalists Gulistan Tara and
Hero Bahadin and injured their colleague Rêbı̂n Bekir.46 Armed men af2iliated with the
Rapid Support Forces, a belligerent in Sudan’s civil war, kidnapped freelance journalist
Aladdin Abu Harba.47 Armed soldiers in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo
went to the home of reporter Parfait Katoto and threatened to kill him over his criticism of
insecurity in the region.48 Journalists Win Htut Oo and Htet Myat Thu were killed in a
military raid on a home in Myanmar alongside members of a local armed group resisting
the military government.49 In that same country, Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to various
news outlets (including newspapers that were shuttered or banned by the junta), was shot
and killed while in military custody.50 A Russian attack in Ukraine killed Reuters safety
adviser Ryan Evans and injured three journalists.51 Last fall, Reporters Without Borders
also sounded the alarm about increased threats to journalists in the West African Sahel.52
Years of escalating violence by Islamist militants and a string of military coups have
plunged the region into turmoil and made reporting exceptionally dangerous.53 At least two
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/long ... urnalists-
killed-by-israel-in-gaza
International Federation of Journalists. (2024, December 31). 122 journalists and media workers killed in 2024,
says the IFJ. https://www.iHj.org/media-centre/news/d ... urnalists-
and-media-workers-killed-in-2024-says-the-
iHj#:~:text=One%20hundred%20and%20twenty%2Dtwo,(IFJ)%20on%2031%20December.
45 International Federation of Journalists. (2024, December 5). Syria: DPA photographer killed in an airstrike
near Hama city. https://www.iHj.org/media-centre/news/d ... led-in-an-
airstrike-near-hama-city
46 IFJ. (2024, August 27). Iraqi Kurdistan: Two women journalists killed and one other injured.
https://www.iHj.org/media-centre/news/d ... illed-and-
one-other-injured
47 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2024b, August 29). Paramilitary group kidnaps, demands ransom for
Sudanese journalist. https://cpj.org/2024/08/paramilitary-gr ... -sudanese-
journalist/
48 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2024a, May 16). DRC soldiers threaten to kill journalist Parfait Katoto over
broadcasts. https://cpj.org/2024/05/drc-soldiers-th ... roadcasts/
49 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2024d, September 11). Myanmar soldiers shoot dead 2 journalists in raid
on home. https://cpj.org/2024/08/myanmar-soldier ... d-on-home/
50 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2024a, February 16). Myanmar journalist Myat Thu Tan killed in military
custody. https://cpj.org/2024/02/myanmar-journal ... y-custody/
51 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2024d, August 27). Reuters safety adviser killed, 3 journalists injured in
Ukraine. https://cpj.org/2024/08/reuters-safety- ... n-ukraine/
52 Banchereau, M. (2024, September 24). Media freedom group sounds alarm on increased security risks for
local journalists in Africa’s Sahel. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/media-freedo ... reporters-
without-borders-journalists-fc10aef159ffc631c58140efdb3b7934
53 Turse, N. (2020, October 15). How one of the most stable nations in West Africa descended into mayhem.
The New York Times.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/maga ... sm-united-
states.html Turse, N. (2023, April 2). After Two Decades of U.S. Military Support, Terror Attacks Are Worse
Than Ever in Niger. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2023/04/02/us- ... terrorism-
niger/
11
community radio reporters were killed and two others kidnapped by armed groups in Mali
and Chad since November 2023.54
War Reporting: Risky But Essential
At its core, journalism provides the public with the information needed to better
understand the world around them. Freedom of expression and the right to receive
information have been called fundamental “meta rights” without which other core rights
would not exist.55
Modern con2lict coverage is more than an accounting of armies and a scorecard of
battles cobbled together from the of2icial accounts of belligerents. It is centered on the act
of bearing witness to the realities and horrors of wars. Journalists serve as the eyes and
ears of the world, seeking out solid, veri2iable information amid a vortex of violence and a
welter of rumor, manipulation, misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. “In times
of con2lict, the right to information is a ‘survival right’ on which the very lives of civilians
depend, and journalists play an indispensable role as a vital source of information, and as
human rights defenders and witnesses to atrocities,” a panel of U.N. experts announced last
year.56
Violence against war reporters is, therefore, a threat to the global information
ecosystem, undermining the media’s watchdog role and diluting its function as a “Fourth
Estate” dedicated to informing the citizenry and providing a check against power. Attacks
on the press anywhere in the world weaken open societies which rely on the free 2low of
accurate and reliable information. The killing of journalists is the most extreme form of
press censorship and is compounded by rampant impunity. Around 90 percent of murders
of journalists worldwide go unpunished, encouraging enemies of transparency and
accountability to target reporters.57
In addition to exposure to direct harm and risk of death, war reporters are often
subject to mental, emotional, and psychological stressors, including repeated or extreme
exposure to traumatic events. The violence of the warzone means that con2lict journalists
run a signi2icant risk of experiencing trauma as targets of violence, indirectly as
eyewitnesses, as well as through narrative accounts from victims and witnesses to
54 Banchereau, M. (2024, September 24). Media freedom group sounds alarm on increased security risks for
local journalists in Africa’s Sahel. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/media-freedo ... reporters-
without-borders-journalists-fc10aef159ffc631c58140efdb3b7934
55 Sen, A. (1984). The right not to be hungry. In P. Alston & K. Tomaševski (Eds.). The right to food (p.70–71).
Heyns, C., & Srinivasan, S. (2013). Protecting the right to life of journalists: The need for a higher level of
engagement. Human Rights Quarterly, 35(2), 304–332. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24518018
56 UN the OfHice of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. (2024, February 1). Gaza: UN experts condemn
killing and silencing of journalists. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases ... n-experts-
condemn-killing-and-silencing-journalists
57 Kotišová, J., & Deuze, M. (2022). Decolonizing ConHlict Journalism Studies: A Critical Review of Research on
Fixers. Journalism Studies (London, England), 23(10), 1160–1177. IMS. (2023, October 31). Journalists must be
protected, even in war zones. https://www.mediasupport.org/blogpost/j ... cted-even-
in-war-zones/
12
violence.58 Repeated viewing of vivid images and video footage of bloodshed and human
suffering may also lead to vicarious traumatization.59
Con2lict reporters often encounter people in extreme crisis, including those who
have been sexually assaulted, maimed, traumatized, and displaced. Reporters also bear
witness, sometimes routinely, to gruesome events involving death and destruction.60 “There
was a bombing just a few meters in front of me, with body parts 2lying and landing at my
feet as I stood there,” recalled Haneen Harara, a reporter in Gaza, of an Israeli attack. “I
didn’t have time to feel sad or shocked… There were people we needed to report about in
the news, live reports.”61 Then there are the under-appreciated and unforgettable odors of
the con2lict zone – explosives, 2ire, and the terrible scent of putrescence.62 As Nataliya
Vasilyeva, who covered the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israeli
civilians recalled:
I was among the 2irst group of reporters that the IDF allowed into Be'eri, a
kibbutz that would become a byword for Hamas atrocities… Later that day, a
colleague who was waiting outside asked: 'So what did you see?' It's not what I saw, I
admitted. It was the stench of rotting corpses that was overwhelming… Shaken, I
drove along the pitch-black road late at night, with the windows down so I could
hear any sirens. As I raised my hand to scratch my nose, I could still smell it, that
stench. I smelled of it too.63
War reporters have a higher risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) and major depression than other journalists.64 Their lifetime prevalence of PTSD is
similar to that of military combat veterans.65 A recent study of 32 Pakistani con2lict
reporters found that, after covering traumatizing and life-threatening events, most
experienced some form of psychological distress including anxiety, agitation, insomnia, lack
58 Obermaier, M., Wiedicke, A., Steindl, N., & Hanitzsch, T. (2023). Reporting trauma: ConHlict journalists’
exposure to potentially traumatizing events, short- and long-term consequences, and coping behavior.
Journalism Studies, 24(11), 1398–1417.
59 Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. (2014). Working with traumatic imagery. In Dart Center.
https://dartcenter.org/content/working- ... ic-imagery
60 Simpson, R. A., & Boggs, J. G. (1999). An exploratory study of traumatic stress among newspaper journalists.
Journalism & Communication Monographs, 1(1), 1–26.
Buchanan, M. (2011). Coping with traumatic stress in journalism: A critical ethnographic study. International
Journal of Psychology, 46(2), 127–135.
61 Fahmy, S. S., Salama, M., & Alsaba, M. R. (2024). Shattered lives, unbroken stories: Journalists’ perspectives
from the frontlines of the Israel–Gaza war. Online Media and Global Communication, 3(2), 151–180.
62 Turse, N. (2017). Ghost Nation. Harper’s Magazine. https://harpers.org/archive/2017/07/ghost-nation/;
Al-Hajjar, M. (2024, January 18). In Gaza, you don’t only see death. You smell it. You breathe it. Middle East Eye.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/g ... breathe-it; UN News.
(2024, October 22). ‘The smell of death is everywhere’ in northern Gaza, UNRWA chief says.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1155971
63 Vasilyeva, N. (2024, April 1). "I tried to scrub the smell of death off of my body...': A war reporter's Israel-
Hamas diary; Six months on from the start of the conHlict our correspondent -- who also covered Ukraine and
Syria -- explains why this war is like no other." Telegraph Online. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-
news/2024/04/01/war-correspondent-israel-gaza-six-months-on/
64 Feinstein, A., Owen, J., & Blair, N. (2002). A hazardous profession: War, journalism, and psychopathology.
American Journal of Psychiatry, 159(11), 1570–1576.
65 Feinstein, A., Owen, J., & Blair, N. (2002).
13
of focus, and intrusive recollection of events.66 A 2023 survey of 82 Syrian war reporters
found almost 87 percent reported losing a colleague, causing them “high levels of sorrow
and pain.”67 Despite a growing realization of the psychological toll of con2lict reporting over
the last two decades, studies have found that few war reporters have received trauma
training prior to assignments nor psychological debrie2ings afterward.68
Con2licts can affect reporters in myriad ways beyond personal danger and exposure
to frontline trauma.69 Palestinian journalists in Gaza have also, since October 2023, faced
malnutrition and a lack of clean water, shelter, and electricity, adding to their stress and
fatigue.70 Women journalists and media workers face torrents of online trolling and sexist
hate speech as well as physical assault, rape and even murder.71 Cyberattacks are also a
growing threat. A 2023 survey indicated that 68 percent of media professionals and 82
percent of bloggers in Ukraine have faced increased cyberattacks since Russia’s full-scale
invasion.72
Other under-appreciated risks to war reporters include occupational exposures
endemic to con2lict zones. Such dangers include toxic agents like the carcinogenic herbicide
Agent Orange, which was employed by the U.S. during the Vietnam War; depleted uranium
munitions used by the United States in the Middle East and associated with the debilitating
Gulf War syndrome; and asbestos and other toxic materials like metals and silica, found in
the smoke and dust of bombed buildings.73
66 Siddiqua, A., & Iqbal, M. Z. (2024, February). Journalists and exposure to trauma: Exploring perceptions of
PTSD and resilience among Pakistan’s conHlict reporters. Journalism Practice, 1–16.
67 Peralta Garcı́a, L., & Ouariachi, T. (2023). Syrian journalists covering the war: Assessing perceptions of fear
and security. Media, War & ConYlict, 16(1), 44–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635221999377
68 Obermaier, M., Wiedicke, A., Steindl, N., & Hanitzsch, T. (2023). Reporting trauma: ConHlict journalists’
exposure to potentially traumatizing events, short- and long-term consequences, and coping behavior.
Journalism Studies, 24(11), 1398–1417; Wende, S.-F., & Schäfer, M. (2021). War das noch Amok, oder ist das
schon Terror? Mechanismen und Hindernisse der journalistischen Berichterstattung über (terroristische).
Gewaltereignisse. Studies in Communication and Media, 10(4), 447–489.
69 Schneider, A. K. (2009). International media and conHlict resolution. Marquette Law Review, 93, 1–6. Journals
at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol93/iss1/1;
Allan, S., & Zelizer, B. (2004). Reporting war: Journalism in wartime. Routledge;
Crawford, E., & Davies, K. (2014). The international protection of journalists in times of armed conHlict: The
campaign for a press emblem. Wisconsin International Law Journal, 32(1), 1–32.
70 Fahmy, S. S., Salama, M., & Alsaba, M. R. (2024). Shattered lives, unbroken stories: Journalists’ perspectives
from the frontlines of the Israel–Gaza war. Online Media and Global Communication, 3(2), 151–180. Serhan, Y.
(2023, December . Palestinian Journalists Offer a Rare Glimpse Into Life in Gaza. But for How Long? TIME.
https://time.com/6343715/israel-hamas-w ... ists-gaza/
71 UNESCO. Safety of Women Journalists. UNESCO.Org, www.unesco.org/en/safety-journalists/safety-women-
journalists?hub=687.
72 Nastya, & Nastya. (2023, August 3). 14% of Ukrainian journalists and bloggers faced wiretapping and
surveillance, and 40% received threats. ZMINA. https://zmina.info/en/news-en/ukrainian ... lists-and-
bloggers-faced-wiretapping-and-surveillance-and-received-threats-imi/
73 Some journalists who covered the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, for example, have reported
suffering from Balkan Syndrome, a complex chronic illness experienced by troops who were also deployed to
the region. Magnavita, N., Congedo, M. T., Di Prinzio, R. R., & Iuliano, A. (2021). War journalism: An
occupational exposure. BMJ Case Reports, 14(10).
14

.....................cont

[TonyGosling]

Danger to War Reporters: A Brief History
William Howard Russell of the Times of London, who covered the Crimean War of
the 1850s, the Indian Mutiny, the American Civil War of the 1860s, and the Franco-Prussian
War – was the 2irst reporter to be called a “war correspondent” by his editors. He thought
the title was absurd, however, and described himself, toward the end of his career, as the
“miserable parent of a luckless tribe.”74
In the decades after Crimea, many con2licts were typi2ied by clashing armies on
de2ined battle2ields.75 Coverage tended to focus on militaries and their leadership, combat,
and the politics of war. Attitudes about war and the suffering it generated were also in 2lux
and protocols regulating both were repeatedly debated and codi2ied in places like Geneva,
Switzerland and The Hague, Netherlands. These included provisions regarding journalists,
which were 2irst adopted in 1929. Such efforts culminated with the adoption of the Geneva
Conventions of 1949, four treaties that reaf2irmed and revised the previous agreements and
expanded the rules protecting noncombatants.76
At the same time, however, civilians in war zones were increasingly targeted, and
their deaths came to exceed those of combatants. While it wasn’t always portrayed as such,
civilian slaughter and suffering were fast becoming the de2ining story of modern warfare.
As many as 750,000 people were killed during the American Civil War, but only about seven
percent of them were civilians.77 Eighty years later, World War II left 65 million civilians
dead – nearly two-thirds of the 100 million total killed – according to new estimates.78
During the Second World War, journalists like Edward R. Murrow, who broadcast live
reports from London during the Blitz; Martha Gellhorn who covered the D-Day invasion
from a hospital ship and exposed the horrors of the Nazi death camp at Dachau; and Ernie
Pyle, who reported the con2lict from the perspective of ordinary soldiers, offered
unprecedented coverage of a global war on a global scale. But the con2lict was also largely
reported by embedded journalists whose direct access to combat zones was controlled by
militaries and whose reportage was constrained by government censors.
74 Patton, R. H. 1. (2014). Hell before breakfast: America's Yirst war correspondents making history and
headlines, from the battleYields of the Civil War to the far reaches of the Ottoman Empire (First edition).
Pantheon Books, xv; Simpson, J. (2016). We chose to speak of war and strife: The world of the foreign
correspondent. Bloomsbury, xiii.
75 Notable exceptions in which large numbers of civilians were targeted include the slaughter of the Paris
Commune of 1871, the Italian wars in Libya and Abyssinia in the 1910s, and the Spanish Civil War of the
1930s. For more, see: Merriman, J. (2014). Massacre: The life and death of the Paris Commune (1st ed.). New
York: Basic Books. Simpson, J. (2016). We chose to speak of war and strife: The world of the foreign
correspondent. Bloomsbury.
76 Grossman, L. R. (2017). All the news that’s worth the risk: Improving protection for freelance journalists in
war zones. Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, 40(1), 141–166.
77 O| Gráda, C. (2024). The hidden victims: civilian casualties of the two World Wars. Princeton University Press.
78 O| Gráda, C. (2024).
15
Pyle was one of at least 67 reporters who died in World War II.79 No less than 17
journalists were slain reporting on the Korean War in the 1950s.80 And at least 71 reporters
were killed covering the wars in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam from the 1960s through the
1970s.81
From the Crimean War through the Vietnam War, journalists covering con2licts
generally enjoyed safeguards as neutral observers with civilian status. Most reporters’
deaths resulted from shelling, ambushes, cross2ire, landmines or aircraft accidents. But
during the late stages of the U.S. con2lict in Southeast Asia, Cambodia’s murderous Khmer
Rouge began killing, sometimes even capturing and executing, journalists.82 By one count,
25 foreign correspondents were killed in Cambodia in 1970, 20 in April and May of that
year alone.83 These deaths in Cambodia foreshadowed the targeting of war reporters that
would become commonplace post-9/11, part of an increasing hostility toward journalists
by both nation-states and militant groups.
The Vietnam War was also notable for ushering in a new enmity toward the press in
the halls of American power. Angered by honest coverage of U.S. military and political
failures in Southeast Asia, the White House and Pentagon saw the media as a convenient
scapegoat. “[O]ur worst enemy seems to be the press,” President Richard Nixon insisted,
blaming TV networks for the American public’s increasing disenchantment with the
con2lict.84
After the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, the Defense Department instituted strict press
controls over its military interventions in Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989), severely
curtailing coverage. During the 1991 Gulf War, more than 1,500 journalists poured into
Saudi Arabia but that country and the United States obstructed coverage with a pool system
that allowed only small groups of reporters with military escorts access to battle2ield areas.
Secretary of State James Baker celebrated the situation, casting journalists as “poor
demoralized rabble – outwitted, out2lanked, outmaneuvered by the U.S. military.” Only after
79 Counts of the number of reporters slain vary. The Freedom Forum counts 67 reporters killed in World War
II. Freedom Forum. (2023, June 22). Journalists Memorial. https://www.freedomforum.org/journalists-
memorial.
80 Freedom Forum. (2023, June 22). Journalists Memorial.
81 Forste, S. (2006, May 31). Iraq journalist deaths match number killed during Vietnam War. Committee to
Protect Journalists. https://cpj.org/2006/05/iraq-journalist ... ed-during/;
Santora, M., & Carter, B. (2006, May 30). Iraq becomes deadliest of modern wars for journalists. The New York
Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/worl ... dern-wars-
for-journalists.html
82 Axelrod, J. (2013, June 2). Fallen journalists in Cambodia remembered. CBS News.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fallen-jou ... emembered/
83 At least 37 journalists, foreign and Cambodian, were killed in Cambodia between April 1970 to April 1975.
No less than 31 Cambodian journalists died after communist forces seized the capital on April 17, 1975.
McGilligan, C. (2010, April 23). Journalists killed in Cambodia remembered by relatives, colleagues. The
Cambodian Daily.; Volkert, K., & Williams, J. T. (2001). A Cambodian Odyssey: and The Deaths of 25 Journalists:
Kurt Volkert. (n.d.). Writer’s Showcase Press.
84 Pach, C. (2015, April 29). Public Learned Less After Media Was Blamed for Failure in Vietnam. The New York
Times. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2 ... e-fall-of-
saigon/public-learned-less-after-media-was-blamed-for-failure-in-vietnam
16
Saddam Hussein’s repressive Iraqi regime began granting access to the front line, did the
U.S.-led coalition begin loosening press restrictions.85
As late as the early 1990s, autocratic governments like Hussein’s Iraq and even
guerrilla groups at least tolerated war reporters. Journalists were useful in getting a
belligerent’s message out and bolstering their legitimacy on the world stage. New dangers
were, however, emerging. Foreign correspondent Scott Anderson remembered that while
the con2lict in El Salvador during the mid-1980s was “vicious,” reporters could still tape
“TV” on their cars and “drive back and forth across no-man’s land.” Less than a decade later,
during the war in Bosnia, he said that taping “TV” to your car was “like putting a bull’s-eye
on it.’86 Between 1992 and 1995, 19 reporters were killed in Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo,
alone.87 “It was during these con2licts that our reporters’ immunity ended; no longer were
we considered neutral objective witnesses,” CNN’s Christiane Amanpour observed of the
wars in the Balkans. “We became deliberate targets.”88
In early 2002, just months after the 9/11 attacks, The Wall Street Journal reporter
Daniel Pearl was deceived by a would-be source, kidnapped and brutally murdered by
terrorists in Pakistan. A video released online showed Pearl’s throat being slit and his
decapitated head.89 In 2012, James Foley, an American con2lict reporter who had been
abducted in 2011 while covering the Libyan civil war, was kidnapped again, this time by
ISIS militants in Syria. In 2014, ISIS released a video of Foley being beheaded.90 British
photojournalist John Cantlie was taken hostage alongside Foley in Syria. He is presumed
dead.91 Freelance journalist Austin Tice was abducted in Syria in 2012 and remains
85 Bliss, J. C. (2003, July 30). The Press Goes to War. Hoover Institution.
https://www.hoover.org/research/press-goes-war; Pach, C. (2015, April 29). Public Learned Less After Media
Was Blamed for Failure in Vietnam. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2 ... on/public-
learned-less-after-media-was-blamed-for-failure-in-vietnam
86 Caesar, E. (2014, August 22). Ed Caesar on the end of war reporters & journalism. British GQ.
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/war-reporting;
Høiby, M., & Ottosen, R. (2019). Journalism under pressure in conHlict zones: A study of journalists and editors
in seven countries. Media, War & ConYlict, 12(1), 69–86.
87 Simpson, J. (2016). We chose to speak of war and strife: The world of the foreign correspondent. Bloomsbury,
250, 32.
88 Hankir, Z. & Amanpour, C. (2019). Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the
Arab World. Penguin Publishing Group, xi.
89 Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. (2002, August 1). Government urges CBS, Web site host to
refrain from airing Pearl murder video. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
https://www.rcfp.org/journals/the-news- ... bs-web-si/
90 Fredrick, Y. & Cohen. A. Media martyrs: Among those who died while working as journalists in the past 15
years. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/11 ... index.html
91 Harkin, J. (2021, November 20). The last hostage: the story of John Cantlie. British GQ. https://www.gq-
magazine.co.uk/politics/article/the-last-hostage-the-story-of-john-cantlie; Harkin, J. (2022, February 1).
Stories of kidnapped journalists must be told despite blackouts. Columbia Journalism Review.
https://www.cjr.org/Hirst_person/john-c ... -syria.php
17
missing.92 In 2013, Steven Sotloff, a freelance U.S.-Israeli reporter covering the refugee
crisis in Syria, was also kidnapped and, the next year, beheaded by ISIS.93
On the other side of the post-9/11 wars, the U.S. military introduced new measures
to control media access and curtail independent reporting by embedding journalists with
military units in exchange for battle2ield access and the protection of U.S. forces.94 The
result was constrained reporting that offered little contact with civilians.95 George C.
Wilson, who covered the Vietnam War and was embedded with U.S. Marines during the
2003 invasion of Iraq, recognized the effect on his work. “I felt that my auditing function
and my responsibility to my reader to give some accountability was very much restricted,”
he observed. “So in effect I was putting myself in a position to be a propagandist, which was
great for the Pentagon, but not so great for the readers.”96
U.S. military efforts to in2luence press coverage were, however, the least egregious of
American assaults on media freedom during the Iraq War. In March 2003, questions were
raised about the U.S. “cross2ire” killings of Independent Television News’ reporter Terry
Lloyd, his cameraman, Fred Nérac, and 2ixer, Hussein Osman. That April, U.S. forces 2ired on
the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, a home to many unembedded journalists, killing
cameramen Taras Protsyuk (Reuters) and José Couso (Telecinco). In the wake of the deaths,
Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke said Baghdad “is not a safe place. You should not be
there.” The same day as the hotel attack – and despite the fact that the network supplied the
Pentagon with their headquarters’ coordinates – a U.S. missile struck Al Jazeera’s Baghdad
of2ice, killing reporter Tariq Ayyoub. BBC reporter John Simpson who was wounded in an
American “friendly 2ire” incident that killed his translator Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed,
suggested that the targeting of some journalists by U.S. forces may have been deliberate.97
Two years into the war, in fact, CPJ had already con2irmed U.S. forces had killed 13
92 Hudson, J., Nakashima, E., & Lamothe, D. (2024, December 10). U.S. group travels to Syria in search of
missing reporter Austin Tice. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-
security/2024/12/10/austin-tice-syria-assad/
93 AFP. (2020, October 7). Journalists and aid workers: US hostages killed by Islamic State. France 24.
https://www.france24.com/en/20201007-jo ... amic-state
94 Di Giovanni, J. (2021, March 19). The Decline of Foreign Reporting Spells Worse Foreign Policy. Foreign
Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/15/hi ... alism-war-
reporting-photography/
95 Høiby, M., & Ottosen, R. (2019). Journalism under pressure in conHlict zones: A study of journalists and
editors in seven countries. Media, War & ConYlict, 12(1), 69–86.
96 The Media’s War in Iraq. (2003, April 21). PBS News. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-medias-
war-in-iraq
97 McLaughlin, G. (2016). The war correspondent. London: Pluto Press.; Jamail, D. (2013, April 11). Iraq: The
deadliest war for journalists. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/4/1 ... deadliest-
war-for-journalists Byrne, C. (2020, July 1). US soldiers were main danger to journalists, says Simpson. The
Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/ ... media.bbc1
18
journalists in Iraq.98 By 2009, the number had crept up to at least 16.99 The next year, new
details would emerge about the U.S. military’s killing of two reporters and a years-long
cover-up.
On July 12, 2007, a U.S. helicopter gunship in Baghdad opened 2ire on a group of
people milling around on a street, including two unarmed Reuters journalists, Namr Noor-
Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh.100 The helicopter crew watched for about three minutes as the
wounded Chmagh crawled for his life. A good Samaritan stopped and two unarmed men
carried Chmagh to a van, after which the Americans opened 2ire again, killing all three.101
In all, 11 people died in the attack and two children were seriously wounded.102 U.S.
troops seized Noor-Eldeen’s two cameras, so Reuters couldn’t check what he had been
photographing and invented a story about Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh being killed in
cross2ire between U.S. forces and militants. “There is no question that coalition forces were
clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,” Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a
military spokesman in Baghdad, told the New York Times following the attack.103 U.S. gun-
camera video of the killings, kept secret for years, showed something quite different.104
“The U.S. assertions that Namir and Saeed were killed during a 2ire2ight was all lies,” said
Dean Yates, Reuters’ Baghdad bureau chief at the time of the attack, after watching footage
of the killings years later.105
The true story of Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh’s deaths may have never been known if
not for whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a U.S. military intelligence analyst in Baghdad.
98 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2008, November 2). Iraq Report: Killed by U.S. Forces - Committee to
Protect Journalists. https://cpj.org/reports/2006/01/js-killed-by-us-
13sept05/#:~:text=When%20Ayyoub%20and%20Nadhim%20went,been%20killed%20by%20other%20or
dnance.
99 Tyson, A., Washington Post, Reuters, Finkel, D., Kim, T., Smyth, F., & Whitman, B. (2009). Military’s Killing of
2 Journalists in Iraq Detailed in New Book. The Washington Post. https://benhuser.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/04/militarys-killing-of-2-journalists-in-iraq-detailed-in-new-book.pdf;
Jamail, D. (2013, April 11). Iraq: The deadliest war for journalists. Al Jazeera.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/4/1 ... ournalists
100 Christensen, C. (2014). WikiLeaks and the afterlife of Collateral Murder. International Journal of
Communication, 8, 2593–2602. http://ijoc.org
101 Daley, P. (2020, June 15). ‘All lies’: how the US military covered up gunning down two journalists in Iraq.
The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... y-covered-
up-gunning-down-two-journalists-in-iraq
102 Bumiller, E. (2010, April 5). Video shows U.S. killing of Reuters employees. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/worl ... ghdad.html; Daley, P. (2020, June 15). ‘All
lies’: how the US military covered up gunning down two journalists in Iraq. The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... p-gunning-
down-two-journalists-in-iraq
103 Rubin, A. J. (2007, July 13). 2 Iraqi journalists killed as U.S. forces clash with militias. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/worl ... 3iraq.html
104 Grier, P. (2010, April 7). Killings of Iraqi journalists: US says they were not war crimes. The Christian Science
Monitor. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/ ... says-they-
were-not-war-crimes
105 Daley, P. (2020b, June 15). ‘All lies’: how the US military covered up gunning down two journalists in Iraq.
The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... y-covered-
up-gunning-down-two-journalists-in-iraq
19
Manning leaked video of the attack to WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange who published
a 17-minute edited version and the full 38-minute version in April 2010.106 Posted online
under the title “Collateral Murder,” the footage sparked international condemnation and put
the lie to the Pentagon’s of2icial narrative of the killings.
Following a 2lood of media reports, the U.S. government took unprecedented action –
not against the perpetrators of the “collateral murder” attack or their commanders but
against the whistleblowers. Manning was court martialed for leaking the video along with
hundreds of thousands of government documents and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
(President Barack Obama later commuted the sentence to about seven years.)107 Manning
was imprisoned, again, in 2019 on a civil contempt charge for refusing to testify in a grand
jury investigation of WikiLeaks.108 Assange was engulfed in a 14-year legal battle, was
eventually jailed in Belmarsh, one of Britain’s highest-security prisons, and faced a
maximum of 170 years in U.S. federal prison.109 In 2024, he pled guilty to a felony count of
illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material in exchange for his release. (The
precedent is seen as a grave danger to press freedom in the future.110)
The U.S. military’s killing of Namir Noor-Eldeen and its execution of the wounded
Saeed Chmagh in Iraq was no anomaly. In neighboring Syria, a civil war turned the country
into a charnel house – and a killing ground for journalists, none more high pro2ile than
American Marie Colvin. A longtime war correspondent for The Sunday Times of London,
Colvin spent 25 years – from the 1987 siege of Basra in the Iran-Iraq War to the 2012 siege
of Baba Amr during the Syrian civil war – writing victim-centered dispatches from con2lict
zones. (After she was blinded in one eye during a 2001 ambush in Sri Lanka, her black
eyepatch became her trademark.)
Broadcasting live from a clandestine media center in the rebel-held city of Homs,
Syria in 2012, Colvin exposed the falsehoods being peddled by the ruling Assad regime. It
was “a complete and utter lie that they’re only going after terrorists,” she told CNN’s
Anderson Cooper. “The Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians.” The
Syrian government traced Colvin’s satellite phone calls, con2irmed her location through an
informant, and then launched a targeted attack on the media center, killing Colvin and
106 Staff, A. J. (2024, June 25). Julian Assange timeline: A criminal or a hero? Al Jazeera.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/2 ... -or-a-hero; Daley, P. (2020,
June 15). ‘All lies’: how the US military covered up gunning down two journalists in Iraq. The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... p-gunning-
down-two-journalists-in-iraq
107 Chappell, B. (2017, May 17). Chelsea Manning, Once Sentenced To 35 Years, Walks Free After 7 Years. NPR.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way ... a-35-year-
sentence-chelsea-manning-to-walk-free
108 Davies, D. (2022, October 17). Chelsea Manning shared secrets with WikiLeaks. Now she’s telling her own
story. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/11294166 ... oir-readme
109 Staff, A. J. (2024b, June 25). Julian Assange timeline: A criminal or a hero? Al Jazeera.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/2 ... -or-a-hero
110 Thrush, G., & Specia, M. (2024, June 24). Assange agrees to plead guilty in exchange for release, ending
standoff with U.S. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/us/p ... n-assange-
plea-deal.html; Savage, C. (2024, June 25). Assange’s plea deal sets a chilling precedent, but it could have been
worse. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/us/p ... eal-press-
freedom.html
20
French photojournalist Rémi Ochlik and gravely wounding British photographer, Paul
Conroy, Syrian interpreter Wael al-Omar, and French journalist Edith Bouvier.111 A U.S.
federal court found Syria’s government liable for Colvin’s murder and awarded her family
$302.5 million. “She was speci2ically targeted because of her profession, for the purpose of
silencing those reporting on the growing opposition movement in the country,” wrote Judge
Amy Berman Jackson. “The murder of journalists acting in their professional capacity could
have a chilling effect on reporting such events worldwide.”112
While the killings of Western reporters in Syria, like James Foley by ISIS and Marie
Colvin by the Assad regime, garnered international attention, the deaths of foreigners
constitute just 1.3 percent of the journalists killed in that con2lict.113 From the beginning of
the Syrian civil war in 2011, 717 journalists and media workers were reportedly slain by
one of the parties to the con2lict, most of them by the Syrian government, according to the
Syrian Network for Human Rights.114 (CPJ counts 140 work-related deaths of journalists
there over that span.115) The killings were part of overlapping censorship efforts in a
multifaceted con2lict involving Assad’s recently-ousted regime, ISIS, the U.S.-backed Free
Syrian Army, and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, among others. Reporters were
subject to legal harassment, surveillance, smear campaigns, attacks, and arrests.116 All of it
set the stage for an international information vacuum.
The war in Syria provided a template for other enemies of transparency,
accountability and press freedom. During its 2009 con2lict with Hamas, Israel attempted to
portray itself as vulnerable and under siege but international media coverage showed it to
be a formidable state that, as one analysis put it, unleashed “excessive force against
111 Fredrick, Y., & Cohan, A. (2017). Media martyrs: Among those who died while working as journalists in the
past 15 years. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/11 ... ess-media-
martyrs/index.html; About Marie Colvin. (n.d.). The Center for Justice & Accountability. https://cja.org/what-
we-do/litigation/colvin-v-syria/marie-colvin/; Hammer, J. (2018, November 2). She reported from the
world’s combat zones, at the cost of her life [Review of the book In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War
Correspondent Marie Colvin, by L. Hilsum]. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/book ... ilsum.html;
Barnard, A. (2016, July 9). Family of Marie Colvin, slain U.S. journalist, sues Syria. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/worl ... syria.html
112 Hilsum, L. (2019, February 3). Marie Colvin verdict gives meaning to her death. The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/ ... s-lindsey-
hilsum; Barnard, A. (2019, January 31). Syria ordered to pay $302.5 million to family of Marie Colvin. New
York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/worl ... vin-court-
judgment.html
113 Syrian Network for Human Rights. (2024, May 3). On World Press Freedom Day: 717 Journalists and Media
Workers Have Been Documented Killed in Syria Since March 2011, Including 53 Who Died Due to Torture.
ReliefWeb. https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-ara ... lists-and-
media-workers-have-been-documented-killed-parties-conHlict-and-controlling-forces-syria-march-2011-
including-53-who-died-due-torture-enar.
114 Syrian Network for Human Rights. (2024, May 3).
115 Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ’s database of attacks on the press.
https://cpj.org/data/killed/all/?status ... B%5D=Journ
alist&cc_Hips%5B%5D=SY&start_year=2011&end_year=2024&group_by=year
116 Peralta Garcı́a, L., & Ouariachi, T. (2023). Syrian journalists covering the war: Assessing perceptions of fear
and security. Media, War & ConYlict, 16(1), 44-62.
21
powerless civilians.”117 During the six-week long 2014 Gaza War, 700 journalists, camera
persons, and photographers arrived in Israel with more than 60 percent of them headed on
to Gaza. A survey of 160 foreign correspondents in Israel that year found only two percent
said military censorship had a major impact on their coverage.118 The casualties were
disproportionate: about 2,200 Palestinian deaths compared to around 73 Israelis, most of
them soldiers, while human rights groups like Amnesty International said there was
“strong evidence” that Israel committed war crimes.119 In the aftermath of the con2lict, the
Israeli government rebuked the international media for what it deemed to be pro-Hamas
coverage.120
While the foreign press proved irritating for Israel, the Israeli government was
learning that it could permanently silence Palestinian journalists with complete impunity. A
May 2023 analysis by CPJ found, for example, that at least 20 reporters were killed by
Israeli forces over 22 years and no one has ever been held accountable. According to the
investigation, Israel responded to the incidents with a standard playbook of preemptive
denials of responsibility, dismissals of contrary evidence and witness testimony, the
employment of false narratives and accusations that deceased journalists were terrorists,
and slow and opaque investigations that never resulted in charges – even when Israel
admitted potential culpability, as happened in the case of Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran
Palestinian-American Al Jazeera correspondent.121
In May 2022, Abu Akleh was, along with two other Palestinian journalists and her
producer, Ali al-Samoudi, reporting on an Israeli raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank. All of them were clad in protective vests with the word “PRESS”
in large white letters across their chests and backs. In an instant, six shots rang out, one of
them wounding al-Samoudi.122 The journalists ducked for cover as a second volley of
117 Blondheim, Menahem, and Limor Shifman. “What OfHicials Say, What Media Show, and What Publics Get:
Gaza, January 2009.” The Communication Review (Yverdon, Switzerland) 12, no. 3 (2009): 205–14.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10714420903124036
118 Cohen, Y. (2014). Foreign Correspondents in Israel, and the Arab-Israeli ConHlict and Peace Process. Journal
of Arab & Muslim Media Research 7(2), 127–43, 132, 137
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _the_Arab-
Israeli_conHlict_and_peace_process
119 Kershner, I. (2018, August 15). Israeli military clears itself of wrongdoing in 2014 Gaza war’s ‘Black Friday’.
The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/worl ... ports.html;
Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture. (n.d.). ‘Black Friday’: Carnage in Rafah during 2014
Israel/Gaza conYlict. https://blackfriday.amnesty.org/
120 JPOST.COM STAFF. (2015, June 15). Watch: Israel gets 'animated' about Gaza war coverage. The Jerusalem
Post. https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-ConH ... -coverage-
406088, Behar, R. (2015, February 19). The Media Intifada: Bad math, ugly truths about New York Times in
Israel-Hamas War. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbeh ... -intifada-
bad-math-ugly-truths-about-new-york-times-in-israel-hamas-war/
121 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2024, October 10). Deadly Pattern: 20 journalists died by Israeli military
Yire in 22 years. No one has been held accountable. https://cpj.org/reports/2023/05/deadly-pattern-20-
journalists-died-by-israeli-military-Hire-in-22-years-no-one-has-been-held-accountable/
122 Abdulrahim, R., Kingsley, P., Triebert, C., & Yazbek, H. (2022, June 20). The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh:
Tracing a bullet to an Israeli convoy. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/20/worl ... ireen.html.
22
gunshots rang out. A bullet hit Abu Akleh in the back of her head, in the gap between
her helmet and her vest, killing her instantly.123
Independent investigations by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the
Associated Press, as well as the Netherlands-based research 2irm Bellingcat, all concluded
that Israeli military personnel likely 2ired the shot. CNN discovered evidence it was a
targeted attack.124 The London-based research group Forensic Architecture and the
Ramallah-based human rights organization Al-Haq found evidence that Israeli forces
intended to kill Abu Akleh and her colleagues. Even the Israeli Defense Forces eventually
acknowledged there was a “high possibility” that the bullet was 2ired by one of its soldiers,
albeit “accidentally.”125 No one has ever been held accountable. Such impunity, in this and
other cases, plays a key role in fostering future violence against reporters.
Beyond killings, strategic uses of cover up, propaganda, information control,
weaponization of public records’ access laws, employment of claims and counterclaims, and
the denial of basic information are routinely used to thwart war zone coverage. An April 1,
2018, U.S. drone strike in Somalia, for example, killed at least three, and possibly 2ive,
civilians, including 22-year-old Luul Dahir Mohamed and her 4-year-old daughter Mariam
Shilow Muse. The Pentagon claimed it killed “2ive terrorists” and destroyed one vehicle and
that “no civilians were killed in this airstrike.” An internal investigation conducted shortly
after the attack acknowledged the deaths of a woman and child but it took almost a year for
the U.S. military to publicly admit it. And still, the Pentagon continued to keep the details of
the strike secret. The author 2iled a Freedom of Information Act request for the
Forensic architecture. (2022). https://forensic-architecture.org/inves ... akleh-the-
targeted-killing-of-a-journalist
123 Abdulrahim, R., Kingsley, P., Triebert, C., & Yazbek, H. (2022, June 20). The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh:
Tracing a bullet to an Israeli convoy. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/20/worl ... ireen.html. SaiHi,
Z., Mackintosh, E., Alkhaldi, C., Khadder, K., Polglase, K., MezzoHiore, G., & Salman, A. (2022, May 26). ‘They
were shooting directly at the journalists’: New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted
attack by Israeli forces. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/24/middleea ... leh-jenin-
killing-investigation-cmd-intl/index.html; Team, B. I. (2022b, May 15). Unravelling the Killing of Shireen Abu
Akleh - bellingcat. Bellingcat. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/20 ... e-killing-
of-shireen-abu-akleh/
124 Abdulrahim, R., Kingsley, P., Triebert, C., & Yazbek, H. (2022, June 20). The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh:
Tracing a bullet to an Israeli convoy. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/20/worl ... ireen.html;
Krauss, J. (2022, May 24). Review suggests Israeli Hire killed reporter, no Hinal word. AP News.
https://apnews.com/article/politics-wes ... 2b401e7a2c; The
Washington Post. (2022). How Shireen Abu Akleh was killed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investig ... leh-death/; Team, B. I.
(2022, May 15). Unravelling the Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh - bellingcat. Bellingcat.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/20 ... abu-akleh/; SaiHi,
Z., Mackintosh, E., Alkhaldi, C., Khadder, K., Polglase, K., MezzoHiore, G., & Salman, A. (2022, May 26). ‘They
were shooting directly at the journalists’: New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted
attack by Israeli forces. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/24/middleea ... leh-jenin-
killing-investigation-cmd-intl/index.html.
125 Rubin, O. (2022, September 5). IDF says there is a 'high possibility' Israeli forces killed journalist Shireen Abu
Akleh. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/05/middleea ... stigation-
intl/index.html
23
investigation documents, was forced to appeal redactions, and 2inally 2iled a federal lawsuit
that dragged on for years. After receiving a heavily redacted copy of the investigation, which
concluded the identities of the mother and child might never be known, he traveled to
Somalia and spoke with seven of Luul and Mariam’s relatives.126
The Pentagon’s inquiry found that the Americans who conducted the strike were
confused and inexperienced and that they argued over basic details, like how many
passengers were in the targeted vehicle. U.S. military personnel mistook a woman and a
child for an adult male and killed Luul and Mariam in a follow-up strike as they ran from a
truck in which they had hitched a ride to visit relatives. Despite this, the investigation – by
the unit that conducted the attack – concluded that standard operating procedures and the
rules of engagement were followed. No one was ever held accountable for the killings.
Uncovering the truth of Luul and Mariam’s deaths – and discovering that as many as
three other civilians were also killed – took a years-long effort by multiple journalists
including the 2iling and appeals of records requests and conducting national and
international reporting; international and domestic travel on the part of reporters and
sources; many thousands of dollars from news outlets and funders as well as in court
2ilings, legal fees, and ancillary expenses. The investigation resulted in calls for the
Pentagon to compensate Luul and Mariam’s family by two dozen human rights
organizations — 14 Somali and 10 international groups — and 2ive members of the U.S.
Congress. Despite it all, the Defense Department has never offered a substantive response
to the 2indings, an explanation of the failures that led to the killings, nor an apology to the
family.127
Part II
The News Industry’s Downward Spiral and the Fall of the Foreign Correspondent
Despite a deeply held belief in the necessity of a free press, strong interest in U.S.
foreign policy, and a conviction that such issues affect their lives, Americans’ ability to
access reliable international news coverage has been severely curtailed by a wide variety of
126 Turse, N. (2023c, November 28). Secret Pentagon Investigation Found No One at Fault in Drone Strike That
Killed Woman and 4-Year-Old. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2023/11/12/som ... ne-strike-
civilian-deaths/
127 Sperber, A., (2021, July 22). US airstrikes have torn Somali families apart. they’re still seeking
justice. VICE. https://www.vice.com/en/article/us-airs ... yre-still-
seeking-justice/; Turse, N. (2023e, December 18). Advocates Demand Compensation for U.S. Drone Strike
Victims in Somalia. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2023/12/18/som ... civilians-
letter/; Turse, N. (2024g, March 5); Turse, N. (2024b, January 9). Rep. Sara Jacobs Urges Pentagon to Make
Amends to Family of Drone Strike Victims. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/09/pentagon-
somalia-drone-strike-reparations/; Turse, N. (2024d, January 31). Ilhan Omar Demands Pentagon
Compensate Somali Drone Strike Victims. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/30/ilhan-omar-
pentagon-drone-strike-victims/; Turse, N. (2024j, March 5). Three More Members of Congress Call on
Pentagon to Make Amends to Somali Family. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2024/03/05/congress-
pentagon-somali-drone-civilian-casualties/
24
factors, many of them economic.128

[TonyGosling]

Over decades, reporting in the public interest has been
increasingly shunted aside by publishers’, broadcasters’, and their investors’ desire to turn a
larger pro2it at the expense of quality news coverage and journalistic values.
Newspaper readership has been declining for decades due to competition from
cable TV news and the Internet but stockholders and stock analysts increasingly demanded
pro2it margins equal or exceed those of better times. Losses in circulation and revenue in
the late 1980s and early 1990s began a downward spiral that has continued for decades.
Two-thirds of newspaper journalism jobs in the United States – around 43,000 – have
disappeared since 2005.129 Over that same span, the U.S. has lost nearly 3,300
newspapers.130 In 2024, newspapers closed at a rate of 2.5 per week. Around 55 million
Americans now live in “news deserts” with limited or no access to local news.131
Similar forces have affected the rest of the media landscape as sales, consolidations
and mergers encouraged repeated cuts to operating costs and budgets – with little
consideration of the effect on news coverage – to increase the bottom line and reward
shareholders. Bonuses tied to pro2its also induced editorial and business-side executives to
slash expenses, almost always to the detriment of news reporting.
In the 1960s and 1970s, international coverage was a staple of network television
news. In the 1980s, American TV networks each maintained about 15 foreign bureaus. By
2010, they had six or less and only one (a one-person ABC bureau in Nairobi, Kenya) was
located in Africa, India or South America.132 As foreign television bureaus closed, the
number of minutes devoted to foreign news plummeted.
128 Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults say the freedom of the press – enshrined in the First Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution – is extremely or very important to the well-being of society. Only eight percent said it was a
little or not at all important. A recent survey of U.S. voters also found that, in any given week, a clear majority
report they either pay “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of attention to news and developments related to U.S.
foreign policy and national security issues. Nearly two-thirds of American voters believe that “foreign policy
decisions our government makes matter to me and my family.” Beshay. (2024, April 23). Most Americans say a
free press is highly important to society. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
reads/2024/04/23/most-americans-say-a-free-press-is-highly-important-to-society/. Halpin, J., & Katulis, B.
(2019, May 5). America adrift: How the U.S. foreign policy debate misses what voters really want. Center for
American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/articl ... ca-adrift/
129 The Death of the Washington Bureau. (2024). Columbia Journalism Review.
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/dea ... ayoffs.php
130 Medill - Northwestern University. (2024). Medill report shows local news deserts expanding.
https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/new ... nding.html
131 Medill - Northwestern University. (2024). Medill report shows local news deserts expanding.
https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/new ... nding.html
132 Constable, P. (2007, February 18). Demise of the foreign correspondent. The Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... e-foreign-
correspondent/dHb489f6-2442-4910-b41a-6ff566fd9fdb/;
Sambrook, R. (2010). Are foreign correspondents redundant? The changing face of international news. Reuters
Institute for the Study of Journalism.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac ... iles/2017-
12/Are%20Foreign%20Correspondents%20Redundant%20The%20changing%20face%20of%20internation
al%20news.pdf
25
Between 1989 and 2001, network news reporting from foreign bureaus dropped by
more than 50 percent.133 In 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, ABC, CBS, and NBC News
devoted 4,828 minutes to international coverage.134 By 2020, that number had plummeted
to 720 minutes – an 85 percent drop. Out of a combined 14,000 minutes of national evening
news broadcasts that same year, the three networks devoted just 2ive minutes, in total, to
coverage of Afghanistan, down from a high of 940 minutes. This marked a 99 percent
decrease from the start of the U.S. war there in 2001.135
The rise of the cable news- and Internet-driven 24-hour news cycle created, even for
print journalists, a relentless pressure to produce content that undermined not only high-
quality investigative reporting but deep-dive con2lict coverage. Janine Di Giovanni,
re2lecting on her reporting from Bosnia, just before the rise of the Internet, noted that
correspondents were still able to work with few interruptions beyond the hazards of
snipers and bombs. “I was given a wad of cash, a medical kit, and a sleeping bag and told to
come back in a few months’ time when I had a good story,” she recalled.136
The Internet exacerbated dif2iculties already facing journalism. From 2000 to 2009,
the number of Internet users around the world rose from 394 million to 1.8 billion.137
Social media users skyrocketed from 970 million in 2010 to 5.1 billion users in 2024.138
Newspapers almost immediately lost their classi2ied ads to the Internet, according to a
report by the United Nations Educational, Scienti2ic and Cultural Organization or
UNESCO.139 At the same time, with Silicon Valley greasing the wheels to get people to go
and stay online, newspapers and magazines made a fatal error, giving away for free the very
same content that they had charged for in physical form. Internet companies capitalized as
the news media’s traditional advertising-centric model collapsed. By the time newspapers
and magazines began considering paywalls, it was too late. Many potential customers were
no longer willing to pay for news.140
133 Fleeson, L. (2003). Bureau of missing bureaus. American Journalism Review, October/November.
https://ajrarchive.org/Article.asp?id=3409
134 Enda, J. (2011). Retreating from the world. American Journalism Review, December/January.
https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=4985
135 Lobe, J. (2023, July 6). Three major networks devoted a full Hive minutes to Afghanistan in 2020.
Responsible Statecraft. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/ ... ed-a-full-
Hive-minutes-to-afghanistan-in-2020/
136 Di Giovanni, J. (2021, March 19). The decline of foreign reporting spells worse foreign policy. Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/15/hi ... alism-war-
reporting-photography/
137 Pursel, B. W. W. H. F. B. (n.d.). Internet users and usage. Pressbooks. Penn State.
https://psu.pb.unizin.org/ist110/chapte ... and-usage/
138 Team, B. (2024, September 6). Social Media Usage & Growth Statistics. Backlinko.
https://backlinko.com/social-media-users
139 UNESCO. (2022). World trends in freedom of expression and media development: 2021/2022 online report -
Journalism as a public good. https://www.unesco.org/reports/world-me ... ournalism-
public-good; Streitfeld, D. (2024, February 28). How the media industry keeps losing the future. The New York
Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/tech ... dying.html
140 Streitfeld, D. (2024, February 28).
26
A decades-long failure to effectively monetize digital news consumption was
exacerbated by the 2008 global 2inancial crisis.141 Two companies, Google and
Meta/Facebook, now receive approximately half of all global digital advertising spending.
Across the world, newspaper sales continue to decline and media outlets struggle for
“clicks” that determine online advertising revenue.142 Since 2020, Facebook has also
drastically reduced the amount of news in users’ feeds, slashing ad revenue by further
diminishing one of the few remaining sources of traf2ic to media websites.143
“We’re becoming more about marketing in journalism than truth in journalism
because we’re depending on the customer to pay the price rather than advertising,”
observed longtime magazine analyst Samir Husni. “The thing now is to make everybody
happy. But that was never the role of journalism, making people happy.”144 Shrinking news
budgets – and the perception that Americans care more about celebrities and scandals
(stories which are far cheaper to report) – have led media companies to disproportionately
cut back on foreign coverage.145
Front-page stories on foreign affairs in U.S. newspapers dropped by half between
1987 and 2004.146 A 2008 report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that
international news was "rapidly losing ground at rates greater than any other topic area."
According to the PEJ report, 64 percent of newsroom executives said that in the previous
three years, their newspapers had decreased the amount of space allocated to foreign news.
Only 10 percent considered foreign coverage "very essential.”147
While the largest national newspapers, like The New York Times and The Washington
Post, continue to offer vibrant foreign reporting, and start-ups, freelancers, and not-for-
pro2it newsrooms have stepped into the breach, they have been unable to compensate for
the steep losses of other outlets. Between 1998 and 2011, at least 18 U.S. newspapers and
two newspaper chains eliminated all their foreign bureaus, according to the American
Journalism Review. These included key regional papers – The Boston Globe, Newsday (Long
141 Kamarck, E. C., & Gabriele, A. (2015, November). The news today: 7 trends in old and new media. The
Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/up ... -media.pdf;
Di Giovanni, J. (2021b, March 19). The decline of foreign reporting spells worse foreign policy. Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/15/hi ... alism-war-
reporting-photography/
142 UNESCO. (2022). World trends in freedom of expression and media development: 2021/2022 online report -
Journalism as a public good. https://www.unesco.org/reports/world-me ... ournalism-
public-good.
143 Bauder, D. (2024, February 2). Think the news industry was struggling already? The dawn of 2024 is
offering few good tidings. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/journalism-l ... messenger-
83afe18984c2a1fc78e78184dddee17d
144 Streitfeld, D. (2024, February 28). How the media industry keeps losing the future. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/tech ... dying.html
145 Likes, T. (2014). Does Anyone Care? The State of International News Coverage Among U.S. Media. Electronic
News 8(1), 64–67; Kotišová, J., & Deuze, M. (2022). Decolonizing ConHlict Journalism Studies: A Critical Review
of Research on Fixers. Journalism Studies (London, England), 23(10), 1160–1177.
146 Carroll, J. (2007). Foreign News Coverage: The U.S. Media’s Undervalued Asset. Joan Shorenstein Center,
Harvard. https://shorensteincenter.org/wp-conten ... arroll.pdf
147 Enda, J. (2011). Retreating from the world. American Journalism Review, December/January.
https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=4985
27
Island, New York), and The Philadelphia Inquirer, among them – with storied traditions of
unique foreign coverage.148
The Los Angeles Times, then the 2lagship newspaper of the Tribune Company, closed
43 percent of its foreign bureaus between 2003 and 2011. Other newspapers in the group –
The Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale's Sun-Sentinel and
Newsday – closed all of their 25 foreign bureaus during the same span. By 2011, Newsday –
which won four Pulitzer Prizes for international reporting between 1985 and 2005 – no
longer had any foreign correspondents.149
Fewer journalists with overseas experience impaired the global information
ecosystem, the media’s accountability function, and the ability of reporters to check and
challenge power. Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser
for strategic communications, bluntly described how the White House weaponized the
demise of foreign bureaus and the decimation of the news industry to manipulate public
opinion. “All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus,” he told The New York Times in
2016. “Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and
Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average
reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being
around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”150
Almost a decade after Rhodes boasted about his White House’s ability to manipulate
inexperienced reporters and turn them into what his then-assistant Ned Price – who
became a State Department’s spokesman under President Joe Biden – called “force
multipliers,” journalism remains in a state of free fall.151 Job losses among print-, digital-,
and broadcast-news organizations increased by almost 50 percent during 2023, according
to the consulting 2irm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.152 The industry lost at least 8,000 jobs
in the U.S., UK, and Canada, that same year.153 In January 2024, alone, another 1,000 media
workers were affected by layoffs and closures. Since then, all manner of media – from
venerable newspapers to non-pro2it newsrooms have downsized including ABC News, the
Associated Press, Axios, the BBC, Buzzfeed, CBS News, the Center for Public Integrity, CNN,
148 Enda, J. (2011).
149 Enda, J. (2011).
150 The type of news and the source, of course, matters. A sophisticated study of the media and the Iraq War
found that paying close attention to the news was no guarantee of being better informed. For those who
followed the news very closely but relied on FOX News, 80 percent had the misperception that close links
between al Qaeda and Iraq had been found. Those who followed print news were less likely to misunderstand
events. Kull, S., Ramsay, C., & Lewis, E. (2016, May 5). Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War. Political
Science Quarterly 118(4), 569–598; Samuels, D. (2016, May 5). The aspiring novelist who became Obama’s
foreign-policy guru: How Ben Rhodes rewrote the rules of diplomacy for the digital age. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/maga ... s-foreign-
policy-guru.html?mcubz=1&_r=0
151 Samuels, D. (2016, May 5).
152 Challenger, G., & Christmas, I. (2023, December 7). Job cuts jump in November 2023 from October; second
time this year cuts lower than same month year ago. The Challenger Report.
https://www.challengergray.com/blog/job ... time-this-
year-cuts-lower-than-same-month-year-ago/
153 Aberneithie, C. (2024, June 4). At least 8,000 journalism job cuts in UK and North America in 2023. Press
Gazette. https://pressgazette.co.uk/media_busine ... cuts-2023/
28
Conde Nast, The Daily Beast, the Evening Standard, Gannett, GovExec, Hearst Magazines, The
Intercept, the Los Angeles Times, NBC News, New York Public Radio, Scripps, the Tampa Bay
Times, Time, Variety, Vox Media, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.154 Vice Media,
worth almost $6 billion as recently as 2017 – making it one of the most highly valued media
companies ever – cut hundreds of jobs and declared bankruptcy in 2023.155 The recent
losses have come despite a relatively strong economy, booming stock market, rising income,
and low unemployment in the United States.
The cutbacks – and fallout -- aren’t con2ined to U.S. media. Canadian foreign bureaus
have almost all disappeared. A 2024 analysis found there are apparently no permanent
Canadian correspondents from the major newspapers or broadcasters based in the Middle
East or mainland China, none on the ground in Russia, and only 60 full-time journalists
from major news outlets – 45 of them working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,
the publicly-owned media company – reporting on world events.156 Research by the Media
Standards Trust in the United Kingdom found international coverage across four key
newspapers fell almost 40 percent between 1979 and 2009.157 “At the Sunday Times 10
years ago, we used to have 10 pages of foreign news, now we have two or three... We also
have far fewer correspondents,” observed Christina Lamb, the chief foreign correspondent
of that UK-based newspaper, in 2024.”158
The demise of the traditional Western “foreign” correspondent at major print or
television outlets has been applauded in some quarters since the role has been traditionally
associated with privilege, whiteness, maleness, and colonialist overtones. Patrick Gathara of
The New Humanitarian notes that “international” news still largely consists of coverage of
wars, disasters, and humanitarian emergencies mostly told by a select group of foreign
journalists. “Ignorance infects how stories are told,” he wrote, calling on major media
154 Tobitt, C. (2025, January 6). Around 4,000 journalism job cuts made in UK and US in 2024. Press Gazette.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/j ... -job-cuts-
2024/#:~:text=The%20tide%20continued%20in%202024,Times%2C%20NYPR%20and%20Hollywood%2
0Reporter
155 Streitfeld, D. (2024, February 28). How the media industry keeps losing the future. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/tech ... dying.html.
Izadi, E., & Sommer, W. (2024, February 22). Former digital-media darling Vice to end website, lay off
hundreds: Once valued at more than $5 billion for its vaunted appeal to younger audiences, the company filed
for bankruptcy last year. https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/me ... dia-shuts-
down-layoffs/ Oi, M. (2024, February 23). Vice Media stops publishing on website and cuts hundreds of
jobs. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68377742
156 Lowman, H. (2025, January 3). Canada’s foreign correspondents are almost extinct. The Hub.
https://thehub.ca/2024/03/12/canadas-fo ... y-extinct/
157 Media Standards Trust (2010). Shrinking world.
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/ ... ards-trust
158 Abrahams, J. (2024, March 26). “I don’t remember a time like this”: Christina Lamb on rising global conHlict.
New Humanist. https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/626 ... christina-
lamb-on-rising-global-conHlict
29
outlets to consider the ethics of dispatching “international journalists” rather than
employing local press to “interpret their own country.”159
The international reporting model was long typi2ied by Western reporters hiring
local “2ixers” to assist them while sitting atop a hierarchy with stringers, freelancers, local
reporters, and others below them in subservient roles.160 A survey of more than 450
journalists from 70 countries examining the relationship between correspondents and
2ixers, described it as “a deep-pocketed foreign reporter hiring a local journalist in an often-
poorer country, to do his or her bidding.” More than half of the 2ixers surveyed said that
they were frequently put in danger.161 In the worst instances, 2ixers have been kidnapped
and foreign media have abandoned them.162
While they generally aren’t in as perilous a position as local 2ixers, Western
freelancers are frequently in precarious states. In 2011, during the opening stages of the
Libyan civil war, South African freelance photojournalist Anton Hammerl was killed in an
attack by government troops. Hammerl had a wife and three young children but, like many
freelancers in con2lict zones, no insurance. Journalists James Foley (who was later killed by
ISIS in Syria), Clare Gillis, and Manuel Brabo, who had been traveling and reporting in Libya
with Hammerl, were kidnapped and held captive. After their release, it fell to them to
help organize a bene2it auction for Hammerl’s family. “The baseline among freelancers is
that nobody is insured,” said Gillis whose freelance employer, USA Today, only purchased
insurance for her after she was kidnapped.163
Almost 15 years later, many freelancers and 2ixers still 2ind themselves in danger,
underequipped, underpaid, and uninsured. Ukraine is atypical of many other nations as it
requires that payments be made when a journalist is injured or killed. In April 2023,
Ukrainian journalist and 2ixer Bohdan Bitik and Italian reporter Corrada Zunino were both
shot by a Russian sniper. Reports indicate that Zunino, who recovered, was wearing a
159 Countries are not, however, monoliths. Many conHlicts have an ethnic or religious basis which creates a
unique set of pressures on local reporters. Journalists from one ethnic group have difHiculties reporting on
those from a different ethnic or religious group that a foreign correspondent may not. Shezaf, H. (2024,
October 1). The ‘other’ side: How identity shapes local coverage of violent conYlict. Reuters Institute.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac ... t-conHlict;
Gathara, P. (2024, October 1). Decolonise How? Humanitarian journalism is no ordinary journalism. The New
Humanitarian.
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/colu ... nalism-no-
ordinary-journalism-ethics-covering-crises
160 Borpujari, P. (2019, June 28). The Problem with ‘Fixers’. Columbia Journalism Review.
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/Hixers.php
161 Borpujari, P. (2019, June 28).
162 Grytsai, M. (2023). Fixers in a war zone. Foreign media’s invisible producers. Journalism Research, 6(3/4),
329-335.
163 Santo A. (2012, June 21). Reporting from the battleYield, uninsured. Columbia Journalism Review.
https://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/r ... eHield.php
30
bulletproof vest while Bitik was not and was killed. Only after Ukrainian media elevated the
issue into a scandal, did Zunino’s employer La Repubblica pay compensation to his family.164
Freelance rates have also stagnated or shrunk over the last two decades. Colombian
journalist Nubia Rojas, who has spent more than 18 years as a freelancer for international
outlets, works several jobs to stay a2loat. “About 10 years ago, I noticed this trend where
outlets do not want to pay you,” she explained last year. “They just sell you the idea that you
are going to associate your name with the prestige of a big media house.”165 Despite
assumptions that freelancers in war zones can 2ind outlets willing to purchase their work,
reporters and photojournalists often have only a limited number of editorial contacts at
publications with shrinking budgets. As Italian photojournalist Francesca Borri observed:
[W]hether you’re writing from Aleppo or Gaza or Rome, the editors see no
difference. You are paid the same: $70 per piece. Even in places like Syria, where
prices triple because of rampant speculation. So, for example, sleeping in this rebel
base, under mortar 2ire, on a mattress on the ground, with yellow water that gave me
typhoid, costs $50 per night; a car costs $250 per day. So, you end up maximizing,
rather than minimizing, the risk.166
Risky Business: Local Reporters Face Greatest Dangers
A shift from foreign to local reporters is occurring in various contexts and con2licts,
even if driven more by economics than evolving attitudes and ethics. “The 2inancial reality
of the established media is such that they can't afford to send experienced journalists into
Syria and insure them and pay them adequately,” war reporter John Brabazon observed in
2014, noting that it might cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per week to adequately
support and protect a news crew.167 “If all the freelancers stop going to Syria, all you'd get,
potentially, is propaganda coming out.” Underpaid and under-resourced foreign freelancers
did 2ill the gap, but after they began being kidnapped, news organizations came under
scrutiny for encouraging them to take incredible risks. An industry-wide moratorium on
164 Grytsai, M. (2023). Fixers in a war zone. Foreign media’s invisible producers. Journalism Research, 6(3/4),
329-335; Nuju. (2023, May 4). Fixer Bohdan Bitik, killed in Kherson, was a polyglot orientalist, volunteer, and a
courageous person. The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine. https://nuju.org.ua/Hixer-bohdan-bitik-
killed-in-kherson-was-a-polyglot-orientalist-volunteer-and-a-courageous-person/; Institute of Mass
Information. (2023) 543 crimes against the media and journalists in Ukraine committed by Russia in the year
and 9 months of the big war. https://imi.org.ua/en/monitorings/543-c ... media-and-
journalists-in-ukraine-committed-by-russia-in-the-year-and-9-i57177d
165 Kahn, G. (2024, April 12). Is freelance journalism still viable? Not for most of the reporters we spoke with.
These are their key problems. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac ... orters-we-
spoke-these-are-their-key-problems
166 Borri F. (2013, July 1). Woman’s work. Columbia Journalism Review.
http://www.cjr.org/feature/womans_work.php
167 Creech, B. (2018). Bearing the cost to witness: the political economy of risk in contemporary conHlict and
war reporting. Media, Culture & Society, 40(4), 567-583.
31
freelancer copy did, as Brabazon predicted, curtail much on-the-ground foreign coverage
from Syria.168
Syrian journalists who stepped into the breach faced persistent danger. A recent
study of Syrian war reporters, most of them freelancers, found 95 percent said covering the
con2lict in their country was extremely, very, or quite dangerous. The reporters frequently
mentioned fears of endangering relatives. About 69 percent also felt they were being spied
on by government authorities. Participants said reporting on radical Islam was also high
risk. “The threat is two-fold: the risk of dying on the battle2ield and the organization’s
threats to any journalist covering the war against them,” said one of the journalists about
ISIS.169 Coverage of the con2lict suffered immensely. “The result has been a war about which
the public debate has been shaped almost entirely by second- and thirdhand information,
opinionating pundits, and social media,” Janine di Giovanni observed while the civil war
raged. “Why bother going to dangerous, expensive Aleppo when you can tweet your take
from your desk in your bathrobe? Fake news and disinformation, too, came to a head in the
Syrian war.”170
Eschewing foreign “parachute journalists” in favor of local reporters with native
language skills and in-depth socio-cultural knowledge is welcome for improving many
aspects of war zone coverage. At the same time, this means additional risks have
increasingly been outsourced to unsalaried, uninsured, under-equipped, 2inancially and
politically vulnerable local reporters.171
Most reporters harmed or killed are local journalists.172 In 2023, 98 percent of
journalists killed were local reporters, according to the International News Safety
Institute.173 Unlike their international counterparts, local journalists often lack the means
168 Blacksin,I. (2023). Death’s common sense: Casualty counts in war reportage from Syria and beyond. Media,
War & ConYlict, 16(3) 414-415.
169 Peralta Garcı́a, L., & Ouariachi, T. (2021,March 21). Syrian Journalists Covering the War: Assessing
Perceptions of Fear and Security. Media, War & ConYlict 16(1), 44–62.
170 Di Giovanni, J. (2021, January 15). The First Draft of History. Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/15/hi ... alism-war-
reporting-photography/
171 Sterling, Encyclopedia of Journalism (2009). p. 645; Grossman, L. R. (2017). All the News that’s Worth the
Risk: Improving Protection for Freelance Journalists in War Zones. Boston College International and
Comparative Law Review 40(1), 141–166; Kotišová, J., & Deuze, M. (2022). Decolonizing ConHlict Journalism
Studies: A Critical Review of Research on Fixers. Journalism Studies, 23(10), 1160–1177.
172 UNESCO. 2020. Protect journalists, protect the truth. Highlights from the 2020 UNESCO Director-General’s
Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity. https://www.unesco.org/reports/sjdi/2020/;
Tejedor, S., Cervi, L., & Tusa, F. (2020). Perception of journalists reporting in conHlict zones: Labour situation,
working conditions and main challenges in information coverage in contexts of violence. Media, War &
ConYlict 15(4), 530–552; Fahmy, S. S., Salama, M., & Alsaba, M. R. (2024, June 27). Shattered lives, unbroken
stories: journalists’ perspectives from the frontlines of the Israel–Gaza war. Online Media and Global
Communication, 3(2), 151-180.
173 Cosentino, E. (2023). KILLING THE MESSENGER. Cardiff School of Journalism, International News Safety
Institute. https://newssafety.org/media/resources/ ... 023pdf.pdf
32
to escape threats or dangerous environments, forcing them into the dual roles of witnesses
and victims.174
Around the world, local reporters interpreting con2licts and crises in their own
countries – from Pakistan to the Philippines – face physical, psychological, emotional,
2inancial, and social risks.175 Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, the publisher, owner, and editor of Aïr
Info, a newspaper with an af2iliated radio station in the town of Agadez, Niger is typical. His
reporting, over the course of several armed con2licts, has repeatedly drawn the ire of state
authorities. “When I was starting out, they tried to buy me off,” he said of government
of2icials. “Then they threatened me with arrest, with prison, with torture.”176 As the only
independent media outlet reporting on a rebellion in the region in the late 2000s, his
newspaper was shuttered for four months over articles allegedly “undermining the morale
of troops.”177 His radio station, he said, was closed down for four years. Arrested by
plainclothes police while attempting to board a 2light to Paris for a professional seminar, he
was then held incommunicado for months and transferred from one remote prison to
another.178 “They accused me of being a rebel and locked me in a cell where I couldn’t stand
but also couldn’t lie down,” he said, con2irming that worse had occurred but that he would
not share the details of his abuse. “In our culture, we don’t talk about these things. But what
I experienced should never be spoken about.”179
Arrests are frequently used to inhibit the reporting of local journalists. Between
1992 and 2024, 2,262 journalists have been imprisoned according to CPJ. Almost 97
percent were local reporters.180 When it comes to the 229 war reporters imprisoned for
doing their jobs since 1992, about 94 percent were local journalists.
Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, CPJ has documented 75 arrests of
journalists in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza and in the city of
Jerusalem. (Israel arrested 72 media workers while Palestinian authorities have arrested
174 Betz, M & Beighley, P. (2020). Fear, trauma and local journalists. In Grøndahl Larsen, A., Fadnes, I., & Ro
Krøvel (eds.), Journalist safety and self-censorship. Routledge. 148–163.
175 Kotišová, J., & Deuze, M. (2022). Decolonizing ConHlict Journalism Studies: A Critical Review of Research on
Fixers. Journalism Studies, 23(10), 1160–1177.
176 Turse, N. (2023, January 10). Interview with Ibrahim Manzo Diallo.
177 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2020, May 27). Ibrahim Manzo Diallo - Committee to Protect Journalists.
https://cpj.org/data/people/ibrahim-manzo-diallo/
178 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2020, May 27) Ibrahim Manzo Diallo.
https://cpj.org/data/people/ibrahim-manzo-diallo/
179 Turse, N. (2023, January 10). Interview with Ibrahim Manzo Diallo.
180 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2024). Explore CPJ’s database of attacks on the press.
https://cpj.org/data/?status=Imprisoned ... lOrForeign
%5B%5D=Local
33
three.)181 Last year, Israel became the world’s third-largest prison for journalists, behind
China and Myanmar and just ahead of Belarus, according to RSF.182
Threats to local reporters – especially in crisis areas and con2lict zones – may also
come from criminals, religious extremists, rebel groups, terrorists, and ethnic, sectarian and
ma2ia groups.183 Local journalists often 2ind themselves precariously employed with heavy
workloads and low wages and may be susceptible to a wide range of pressures – political,
economic and violent – like bribery and intimidation.184
After a civil war broke out in Sudan in 2023, many media outlets closed – adding to
2inancial pressures already affecting reporters. That same year, a survey of 213 Sudanese
journalists found only 23 percent received a salary, with some earning less than $100 per
month.185 Two-thirds of the respondents said they were also subject to at least one type of
threat: physical (53 percent), psychological (90 percent), or cyber (51 percent). “Journalists
are targeted by people on both sides of the con2lict,” said one respondent. More than three-
quarters of the journalists surveyed said their reporting was restricted in some way, with
26 percent practicing self-censorship and 20 percent stating that they were subject to
direct censorship. “Having a different opinion about the war in Sudan or expressing
personal convictions can strain social relations and, in some cases, lead to con2lict,” said one
journalist. “So I practice self-censorship and opt for silence.”186
Such dangers to local reporters are compounded by rampant impunity. Over 15
years, 87 percent of cases of slain journalists remain unresolved, including 98 percent in
the “Arab region,” 89 percent in Asia, and 87 percent in Africa, according to a 2022 UNESCO
report.187 When crimes against journalists are not credibly investigated or prosecuted it
181 Daoud, D., Mandour, M., Culebras, I. M. D., & Alsharif, S. (2025, January 9). Arrests of Palestinian journalists
since start of Israel-Gaza war. Committee to Protect Journalists. https://cpj.org/2024/10/arrests-of-
palestinian-journalists-since-start-of-israel-gaza-war/
182 Reporters Without Borders. (2024, December 12). RSF’s 2024 Round-up: journalism suffers exorbitant
human cost due to conYlicts and repressive regimes. https://rsf.org/en/rsf-s-2024-round-journalism-suffers-
exorbitant-human-cost-due-conHlicts-and-repressive-regimes
183 Jamil, S. (2017). Safety threats, impunity and professionalism: Journalists’ dilemma in Pakistan. Journal of
Sociology and Anthropology, 6, 571–578.
184 Tejedor, S., Cervi, L., & Tusa, F. (2022). Perception of Journalists Reporting in ConHlict Zones: Labour
Situation, Working Conditions and Main Challenges in Information Coverage in Contexts of Violence. Media,
War & ConYlict, 15(4), 530–52; Høiby, M., & R. Ottosen. (2019). Journalism Under Pressure in ConHlict Zones: A
Study of Journalists and Editors in Seven Countries. Media, War & ConYlict 12(1), 69–86. See also, Merchant, D.
(2018). Agentes, no vı́ctimas. Estrategias de periodistas para evadir las agresiones no fı́sicas en Baja
California. Sur le journalisme, 7(1), 80–97.
185 MiCT - Media in Cooperation and Transition. (2024, April 2). In the shadow of violence: The pressing needs
of Sudanese journalists.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/ ... 4643d5/169
9374756358/Report_The_Pressing_Needs_of_Sudanese_Journalists_English
186 MiCT - Media in Cooperation and Transition. (2024, April 2).
187 UNESCO. (2022). World trends in freedom of expression and media development; Global report 2021/2022.
https://www.unesco.org/reports/world-me ... ds/2021/en
34
sends a clear message that reporters can be silenced without repercussions and also
intimidates other journalists, creating a chilling effect that causes them to self-censor.188
Preventing News Graveyards: Gaza and Beyond
Many see a need for complementary relationships involving local reporters and
foreign correspondents, each leveraging their strengths. While the dynamics of foreign
correspondent/2ixer relationships have been evolving for decades, room still exists for
more equitable associations, ensuring protections for 2ixers, and for Western reporters to,
as one analyst recommended, eschew “expat comfort zones” like international hotels, to
embed with local journalists.189
Whatever their faults, foreign correspondents can provide an outside perspective
that may, in certain circumstances, be just as important as an insider’s understanding of a
situation and context. Foreign reporters can often publish articles that may be too
dangerous for local reporters to write and provide corroboration that can be critical for
countering claims of local partisanship.
International correspondents can also, as Anand Gopal pointed out, be crucial in
translating foreign experiences to their own country’s audiences, providing critical context
and nuanced information about the implications of events occurring beyond their home
nation’s borders. “I think Gaza is a good example of how the decline of foreign reporting has
really been a tragic occurrence for Americans trying to better understand what's
happening,” he said recently. “What we've lost are the kind of correspondents who have
expertise in translating these kinds of foreign experiences to an American audience and
making it relevant to an American audience.” This is especially crucial given that, as a recent
Costs of War analysis found, the U.S. government approved $18 billion in security assistance
for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere in the year following October 2023.190
Many Palestinian journalists working in Gaza agree that the war is not being
adequately covered because of the persistent dangers and obstacles they face.191 “[T]he
Palestinian narrative rarely reaches the world, especially since large segments of global
societies do not engage with Palestinian journalists on social media,” observed Palestinian
journalist Haitham Al-Sharif, noting that reporting by journalists in Gaza is often met with
188 Tejedor, S., Cervi, L., & Tusa, F. (2022). Perception of Journalists Reporting in ConHlict Zones: Labour
Situation, Working Conditions and Main Challenges in Information Coverage in Contexts of Violence. Media,
War & ConYlict, 15(4), 530–52.
189 Giotis, C. (2018). ConHlict zones and non-physical risks to journalism practice. Notes from Goma,
Democratic Republic of Congo. Sur Le Journalisme, 7(1), 34–49.
190 Bilmes, L. J., Hartung, W. D., & Semler, S. (2024, October 7). United States spending on Israel’s military
operations and related U.S. operations in the region, October 7, 2023 – September 30, 2024. Costs of War,
Watson Institute, Brown University.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/pap ... dingIsrael
191 Abu Salem, S. (2024, October 3). ‘I lose lots of stories’: Palestinian journalists working under Hire. New
Internationalist. https://newint.org/war-and-peace/2024/i ... urnalists-
working-under-Hire
35
skepticism.192 “I think the journalists in Gaza are doing a great job. Unfortunately, they are
subjected to disinformation and propaganda that accuses them of working with Hamas –
unfounded claims questioning their integrity. They are being killed off. They are threatened.
They are exhausted,” says RSF’s Jonathan Dagher. “So, I think it's important for their
international colleagues to be by their side.”193
The Israeli information blockade has, instead, forced Palestinian journalists – who
courageously continue to work, despite the risks – to stand alone. “The Israeli army has
prevented the foreign press from entering the Gaza Strip, so the responsibility was great on
us as journalists in Gaza to convey the truth with complete credibility. We had two options:
either stop the coverage to protect ourselves and our families from being targeted or
continue the coverage. We chose to continue,” said Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Jamal Al-
Sharif. “I was subjected to a lot of harassment and threats from Israeli of2icers to move from
the north to the south and stop working. However, I did not leave the north with my family.
So the Israeli army targeted my house and martyred my father. He had refused to leave
me.”194 The Israeli military has repeatedly threatened Al-Sharif, claimed he was supporting
Hamas, and, later, that he was one of six Al Jazeera journalists based in Gaza who are
members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant group. Al Jazeera swiftly condemned
the “unfounded allegations” as a “blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in
the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”195
In a July 2024 letter to Israeli authorities, more than 70 media and civil society
organizations – including the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, the BBC, CNN,
The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Washington Post – called on Israel to provide
foreign journalists independent access to the Gaza Strip.196 Sixty-2ive members of the U.S.
Congress also called on then-President Joe Biden to push Israel to allow unimpeded access
for American and international journalists. “This effective ban on foreign reporting has
placed an overwhelming burden on local journalists who are documenting the war they are
living through,” they wrote, also referencing the tremendous number of reporters killed.197
The survivors reporting in the news graveyard of Gaza continue to work under
threat of death, injury, arrest, and cyberattack. They have endured the loss of family, friends,
colleagues, and homes. They have persevered in the face of intolerable hardships. Solidarity
192 Al-Sharif, H. (2024). The world “did not see” Gaza’s true face… How did Israel prevent international
journalists from covering the genocide? Raseef 22.
193 Jonathan Dagher, interview with Nick Turse. (2024, October 24).
194 Kamal Amer, R. (2024, October 22). “The Israeli Army martyred my Father”: What Gaza’s journalists have
endured. The Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/world ... testimony/
195 Kamal Amer, R. (2024, October 22);
Al Jazeera. (2024, October 24). Al Jazeera decries ‘unfounded’ Israeli claims about its Gaza journalists.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/ ... -its-gaza-
journalists
196 Committee to Protect Journalists. (2024, July 11). Media organizations urge Israel to open access to Gaza.
https://cpj.org/2024/07/media-organizat ... -to-gaza//
197 U.S. Representative Jim McGovern. (2024, October 21). McGovern, 64 House Democrats write to Biden
administration urging unimpeded media access to Gaza. Press Release.
https://mcgovern.house.gov/news/documen ... tID=400123
36
in the profession demands that international reporters call out repression, break blockades
and support embattled journalists in Gaza and beyond.
Reporters are in danger around the world – and the sources of those threats are
apparent. “Journalists do not die, they are killed; they are not in prison, regimes lock them
up; they do not disappear, they are kidnapped,” observed Thibaut Bruttin, RSF’s Director
General. “These crimes — often orchestrated by governments and armed groups with total
impunity — violate international law and too often go unpunished.”198 Israel, the Assad
regime in Syria, the United States, and others have honed methods meant to strangle press
coverage and have provided a playbook for others bent on suppressing free speech, muting
dissent, thwarting transparency, and undermining accountability.
Reliable information is essential in con2lict zones for the wellbeing of the local
population and is necessary to enlighten the world on the forces behind wars and the toll
on civilians. It is unacceptable that journalists – mostly local reporters – pay with their lives
to do this vital work. Combating this worldwide threat to the information ecosystem
necessitates a global effort to aid reporters. Journalists, especially those in countries at war,
need support. They require 2inancial and legal backing, safety and security assistance,
psychological and emotional support, and advocacy from not only colleagues but also
people around the world who rely on accurate information. Failing to give journalists under
threat the resources they need aids and abets the forces of censorship and repression and
threatens the free 2low of information on which the people of the world depend.
Acknowledgments: Special thanks to Stephanie Savell, Heidi Peltier, Neta C. Crawford,
Catherine Lutz, Darcey Rakestraw, Mimi Healy, Bruce Shapiro, Elana Newman, Laila Al-Arian,
Anthony Feinstein, Peter Maass, Anand Gopal, Jonathan Dagher, Janine di Giovanni, Antonia
Eser-Ruperti, and John Bosco Mayiga.
This paper was updated on April 2, 2025 to include a new footnote 17, and updated page
numbers in the Table of Contents.
198 Reporters Without Borders. (2024, December 12). RSF’s 2024 Round-up: journalism suffers exorbitant
human cost due to conYlicts and repressive regimes. https://rsf.org/en/rsf-s-2024-round-journalism-suffers-
exorbitant-human-cost-due-conHlicts-and-repressive-regimes

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Specific Intent of Genocide: Statements made by Israeli officials indicating their clear intent to exterminate Palestinians in the Gaza Strip

https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6 ... Gaza-Strip

[TonyGosling]

Latest from the Home Front

Legal profession revolt against the UK judge whose job is to protect Israel's genocide
Judge Johnson so rigged the trial of anti-genocide activists that 1000s of legal professionals have urged him to step down from the sentencing hearing. But Johnson's dirty work is not yet complete

https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/leg ... gainst-the

The trial of the Filton Four reaches its climax on Friday. Judge Jeremy Johnson will decide the sentences of four Palestine Action activists found guilty of criminal damage – after two juries refused to convict them of far more serious charges brought by the British government, via the Crown Prosecution Service.

Keir Starmer’s government failed to secure the convictions for aggravated burglary and violent disorder it so desperately needed. They would have helped retroactively justify its decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation – the first time in British history that a direct action group, which targets property, has been proscribed.

Starmer’s hostility towards Palestine Action is personal. It has been a massive thorn in his side during Israel’s near three-year genocide in Gaza.

From the outset, Starmer suggested that Israel had the “right” to withhold food, water and power from the 2 million Palestinian residents of Gaza – a crime against humanity for which the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Starmer’s complicity in the genocide has only been underscored by Palestine Action, which has targeted Israeli factories operating in the UK run by Elbit Systems that supply Israel’s genocidal army with killer drones for use in Gaza.

The so-called Filton trial derives its name from an Elbit factory in the Filton neighbourhood of Bristol that Palestine Action targeted in August 2024. Efforts to destroy these Israeli drones came at a time when Starmer was under enormous popular – if little political – pressure to end British arms sales to Israel.
PR crisis

Proscription, however, has not worked out well for Starmer. It has entangled him in a self-inflicted public relations crisis of almighty proportions.

Palestine Action activists have been held in remand without trial for an unprecedented period of time, far in excess of the normal maximums, and in especially harsh conditions that have treated them as if they were terrorism suspects, even though their arrests long precede the group’s proscription last year.

These sustained abuses led to a prolonged hunger strike, and a desperate government and media campaign to justify their mistreatment.

Proscription has led to thousands of people, most of them elderly and including upstanding members of British society – from magistrates and doctors to army veterans – facing convictions for “supporting terrorism” for holding up placards stating: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

This popular backlash cornered the High Court into declaring the proscription unlawful – a decision the government is appealing. That has led to another unprecedented situation: police are still arresting people for holding the placards, despite the courts ruling that the basis for such arrests is unlawful.

The law has never looked more of an ass.

Which is why the government is pinning its hopes on Judge Johnson riding to the rescue on Friday.

Judge Johnson has not been shy about showing where his loyalties lie. Not to the law, but to the British security state.

Which should hardly come as a surprise, given his background.

Judge Johnson made it to the bench after years serving as the most favoured barrister of the “secret state”, representing the intelligence services, the ministry of defence and the police. His working environment of choice as a lawyer was behind-closed-doors prosecutions held out of view of the public or proper legal scrutiny.
Rigged trials

Judge Johnson has done precisely nothing to counter the overwhelming impression that the Filton activists’ prosecutions were entirely political. He quite openly rigged both trials in manifold ways, as former British ambassador Craig Murray has set out.

Let me quote from him at length the ways Judge Johnson flagrantly skewed the hearings to the detriment of the activists and justice:

Judge Johnson ruled that the defendants were not permitted to refer to their motives.

He ruled that the jury may not be informed of their absolute right to acquit.

He attempted to have the leading defence barrister, Rajiv Menon KC, prosecuted for contempt of court for informing the jury of their rights.

He ruled that terms including ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ may not be used in court.

He ordered that the notebooks and other writings of the accused be redacted to withhold from the jury any information related to Elbit’s supply of weapons to Israel.

He enforced the concealment from the jury of the nature of the weapons and equipment that had been damaged.

He granted anonymity to senior Elbit staff and admitted their evidence without the defence being able to cross-examine.

He ruled that the trial had *not* been prejudiced by the Secretary of State [Yvette Cooper] and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police [Sir Mark Rowley] stating the offences as fact throughout national media.

He allowed the release to the media of highly edited and selective prosecution video footage during the trial which gave a false impression of events.

He permitted the admission of Metropolitan Police video evidence which they had given over to Elbit’s sole custody for an entire year.

In a trial with so many extraordinary anomalous moments, perhaps the most glaring was Judge Johnson’s efforts to get the main defence barrister in the first trial, Rajiv Menon KC, jailed for contempt of court simply for noting to the jury in his summing up speech that they had a hundreds-of-years-old right in law to acquit.
Jonathan Cook
4 Feb

If you are baffled by why the jury refused to convict the Palestine Action defendants, it's because – unlike them – you didn't hear the actual evidence. You heard what the media wanted you to know.

Here, I explain what the jury learnt from the trial:
388
8
130

Judge Johnson’s behaviour was so unprecedented and certain to have a chilling effect on the ability of defence barristers to represent their clients – the Filton defendants decided to dismiss their barristers from summing up in their second trial to avoid their lawyers facing prison for doing their job and defending them – that the Court of Appeal had no choice but to overrule Judge Johnson’s contempt proceedings against Menon.

Murray rightly concludes: "That is an astonishing list of nefarious actions by Judge Johnson. Read it again. Many people will surely conclude, it is Judge Johnson who should be in jail."
Gagging order

But even with the convictions for criminal damage secured under these rigged conditions, Judge Johnson is still in a position to cause more harm to the rule of law. He is due to sentence the Filton Four on Friday.

Judge Johnson has reserved to himself the right to sentence the four anti-genocide activists not just for the relatively minor criminal damage charge they were convicted of after his rigged trial, but – once again in an unprecedented move – treat those criminal convictions as if they were for terrorism offences.

That means he can impose a longer sentence, more draconian prison conditions and more onerous, life-long conditions after their release.

The jury knew none of this when they were considering whether to convict. Judge Johnson placed a gagging order on his decision during the trial which meant the information was withheld from the jury and could not be reported until after the verdict. The gag was broken only by foreign media and Zarah Sultana, who used her parliamentary privilege to reveal Judge Johnson’s government-friendly, anti-justice machinations.

In yet another unprecedented feature to the trial, this will be the first time in British history that someone accused of criminal damage is sentenced as a terrorist. Judges were only given these extraordinary powers in a highly controversial amendment in 2021 to counter-terrorism legislation.

Judge Johnson’s logic for taking advantage of his extra powers in this case is quite extraordinary too. He argues that, in destroying Elbit’s killer drones, the activists were seeking to “influence” the Israeli government to change its policy in Gaza – that is, to stop committing a genocide.

Putting pressure on governments is what terrorists try to do, he argues, so this must mean the anti-genocide activists are terrorists.

Opposition to the genocide, in Judge Johnson’s view, has to be treated as an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one.

It is all the more astounding that Judge Johnson is using this argument when he refused to allow the jury to hear any evidence of the activists’ larger political motivations: that they wanted to stop British complicity in Israel’s genocide by targeting a factory that made the drones for use in that genocide.

Remember, all this is happening as Starmer’s government makes unprecedented moves to end many jury trials in Britain, leaving us to the mercy of judges like Jeremy Johnson.

As Defend Our Juries notes, the government is looking to create “an extraordinary and deeply authoritarian precedent, allowing countless more protesters to be tried for an ordinary offence, but secretly sentenced as terrorists, without juries knowing this when they convict”.
‘Cruel and vindictive’

Judge Johnson’s rogue manoeuvrings have so incensed the legal profession that thousands signed a petition demanding that he take the chance last Monday to recuse himself from the sentencing hearing. He, of course, refused to do so.

They call his behaviour during the trial “biased” and “discriminatory conduct” and have referred him to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office.

Here is David Whyte, professor of law at Queen Mary’s University of London, who handed the petition to the JCIO explaining another reason why so many legal professionals are outraged by Judge Johnson’s actions: he has shown exceptional “cruelty and vindictiveness” in holding the activists in remand for more than three times the normal maximums, even when the prosecution was not asking for them to be remanded, and for refusing them bail between their convictions and sentencing.

The Court of Appeal is due to issue its ruling on the government’s appeal against the earlier High Court decision declaring Palestine Action’s proscription unlawful this coming Monday, days after Judge Johnson’s sentencing of the Filton activists.

If this is all starting to look like theatre, that it because it is. In dictatorships, these are called show trials. Everyone understands that the outcome is predetermined. Everyone understands that justice is non-existent. The verdict is entirely political. It is a faux-legal rationalisation of what the security state wants.

Judge Johnson is the perfect judge to play that part.

The courts will do exactly what is expected of them unless they are worried that public revulsion will discredit their decision. Now is the time to raise our voices.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Omar Bartov: "Israel is unlikely to face a reckoning for its actions. ... [Gaza] may well be the future of genocide."

Israeli-born Omer Bartov is a professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/opin ... ocide.html

How do genocides end? In most cases, there are two options. Either the perpetrators accomplish their goal, or a military force stops them and accountability ensues.

In 1904, the Imperial German Army began a campaign that nearly wiped out the Herero and Nama peoples in what was then German South West Africa, now Namibia, through fatal expulsions into the desert, incarceration in forced labor camps and outright murder. No one intervened. In 1915, the Ottoman Empire either murdered vast numbers of Armenians it sought to remove from the heartland of Anatolia or caused their death by forced marches. Feeble efforts to bring former Ottoman heads of state to account were quickly abandoned. To this day Turkey denies the genocide.

Conversely, because the Nazi regime was defeated in World War II, its genocide of the Jews and its other mass crimes were adjudicated at Nuremberg. Other genocides that also ended with the military defeat of the perpetrators – such as in Cambodia in 1979, in Rwanda in 1994 and in Bosnia in 1995 – all culminated in some sort of reckoning, however belated and incomplete. Denial of what occurred thus became impossible.

In the earlier case of genocides that “succeeded” because of impunity at the time or the absence of subsequent accountability, the perpetrator state went on to benefit from its criminal actions. The invention and codification of the concept of genocide after World War II was meant to prevent the persistence of this dynamic of impunity and profit.

What we have seen unfold in Gaza, where Israel stands accused in the International Court of Justice of committing genocide in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, appears to portend a new future for the crime.

It is a future in which other nations or leaders may have an incentive to pursue genocidal policies knowing they will not only get away with murder but may even benefit from it. It is a future in which the countries and international organizations that had been committed to stopping and punishing genocide may give license to its recurrence.

Since the current cease-fire in Gaza went into effect on Oct. 10, and President Trump’s 20-point plan was endorsed by the Security Council on Nov. 17, more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli attacks. The military now controls nearly 70 percent of the Strip. Two million Palestinians, who had previously lived in one of the most densely populated areas in the world, are now confined to a third of it, trying to survive in devastated spaces lacking the most basic humanitarian infrastructure.

After the cease-fire and exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, Phase 2 of Mr. Trump’s plan began in mid-January, which intends to bring about the full demilitarization and reconstruction of the Strip, to be managed by a transitional technocratic Palestinian body. Overseeing the process is an international Board of Peace chaired by Mr. Trump. In the long term, the Trump administration has spoken about creating a multibillion-dollar futuristic “New Gaza,” and is reportedly planning to build a major military and personnel base for multinational forces. This will inevitably consign Palestinians in Gaza to the role of construction workers and service providers for the rich inhabiting what used to be their land.

How did we get here?

The Israeli political and military leadership conducted an operation in Gaza that killed at least 70,000 people (as admitted now by the Israeli military), most of them civilians; wounded close to 200,000; and caused vast numbers to die indirectly because of the utter destruction of medical facilities, housing and infrastructure, as well as the deprivation of food and clean water. As I wrote in July 2025, as a scholar of genocide, I believe this was a concerted attempt to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in part, and that the operation therefore reached the high bar of the 1948 Genocide Convention’s definition of this crime.

Israel is unlikely to face a reckoning for its actions. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and his former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as for a Hamas official, who turned out to have been killed. The United States has tried to undermine the court, and Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly visited the White House to, among other things, try to reportedly persuade Mr. Trump to launch his attack on Iran. Israel may eventually be found guilty of genocide by the International Court of Justice, where South Africa has lodged a separate case against Israel, but the implications of such a ruling are unclear as long as Israel retains U.S. support on the U.N. Security Council, which acts as the enforcement arm of the I.C.J.

And so Israeli leaders will probably not be held to account, unless they are at some point handed over to the I.C.C. by a new Israeli government unwilling to bring them to justice in Israel and eager to restore the nation’s international standing. That possibility is remote. Indeed, Mr. Trump’s 20-point plan effectively bypasses any possible accountability or punishment for the authors of this crime by promising a bright future for everyone involved, although calls for the restoration of a semblance of normality for the Palestinians are unlikely to gain much sympathy when Israel and its allies are engaged in constructing an ideal city. What would be the point of stirring up old accusations when a brave new world is about to emerge?

It is true that Israel is experiencing increasing global isolation and disapproval among Americans across the political spectrum, but that is precisely what the glossy plans for a new Gaza may attenuate or even reverse: by persuading distracted publics in a troubled world that the issue of Gaza has been settled to everyone’s satisfaction.

The Trump plan, if its vision is ever realized, would mean that the U.S. government or American businesspeople working on its behalf would be selling rights for leasing and construction on land expropriated from its residents, whose value is expected to rise sky high.

A collection of real estate moguls, possibly including Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and Mr. Trump himself, or companies they promote, would in that way reap a financial bonanza for businesses and investors, transforming the erasure of the Strip into an international investment opportunity. While the coastline would be dominated by prime real estate made up of mixed-use towers seemingly for foreign purchase and tourism – providing profits for developers – Palestinians will almost certainly be priced out of housing on what used to be their land. The plan will not only all but eradicate Gaza’s history and society, but also transform it into a free-market economy for foreign corporations being offered “amazing investment opportunities,” as Mr. Kushner put it.

Building Mr. Trump’s so-called Riviera would depend on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states putting up vast amounts of money on the promise of ensuring even tighter strategic and economic links with the United States. For now, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia, have signaled interest by joining Mr. Trump’s Board of Peace. Israel, as the Board of Peace consolidates control and Gaza is redeveloped, would take another step in its long-term objective of obliterating Palestinians’ hopes for an end to the Israeli occupation of their territories.

Other nations, by declining to hold Israel accountable, will also benefit. Germany is Israel’s second-biggest supplier of arms after the United States and has signed major contracts purchasing military technology from Israel. Germany is defending itself at the I.C.J. against accusations by Nicaragua of facilitating genocide in Gaza by funding Israel and cutting aid to the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, so it has every political and economic interest in taking the issue off the table. (Germany has denied the allegations.) The United Kingdom is believed to have used its military bases in Cyprus to support Israel, and is laboring to improve its relations with the United States. France is trying to maintain its political influence in the Levant and to move on from the question of genocide in Gaza, which, according to President Emmanuel Macron, will be determined by “historians, in due time.”

Israel, too, is profiting. Even though some European governments have canceled weapons deals and sanctioned Israeli defense firms in response to Israeli violence in Gaza, business has remained brisk for Israel’s arms industry. Israeli export arms sales rose by 30 percent last year over 2024, to a record $19.2 billion, according to Calcalist, an Israeli financial news site, and the battle-testing of weapons systems in Gaza serves as a selling point, Calcalist reported. In other words, wreaking destruction brings profits.

For now, Israel’s impunity will enable its Jewish citizens to continue to ignore the genocide, the consequences of which will be a deepening degradation of Israeli ethics and morality, erosion of the rule of law, internal police violence against the state’s Palestinian and Jewish citizens and the undermining of whatever is left of Israeli democracy. Beyond being deprived of any justice and accountability for their suffering, the Gazan victims of Israeli actions will continue to live in dire conditions, under military supervision and with very limited future prospects.

Since Defense Minister Israel Katz reportedly proclaimed last July that Israel was planning to establish a “humanitarian city” in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, actual conditions on the ground have only deteriorated. It appears conceivable that Trump’s plan will be facilitated by an international force aided by Palestinian security personnel and the I.D.F. to enclose the population in such cities, from which they will be able to emerge only to service the wealthy residents of the so-called New Gaza. In those extensive parts of the Strip remaining under Israeli control, new flourishing Jewish settlements are likely to be planted.

Mr. Trump has said that the Board of Peace behind this transformation will at some point collaborate with the United Nations, but many fear that it will undermine the world body. One effect of this shift in the postwar order would be the gutting of international humanitarian law and of the two international courts set up to preserve it, ensuring that any hopes to bring Israeli policymakers to justice will remain nothing more than a pipe dream and signaling to other nations that impunity will be open to them too.

Some may argue that the case of Gaza is singular because Israel enjoys a unique international position thanks to its tight alliance with the United States and its reliance on the legacy of the Holocaust. Perhaps other states cannot expect to be rewarded and may even be punished for genocide. Yet what we are seeing today sets an extraordinary precedent, one that has the potential of undermining the entire premise of genocide as a crime punishable under post-World War II international law.

If the plans that are currently being elaborated for Gaza go forward, genocide may come to be seen by some nations as the legitimate and lucrative extension of politics by other means. At the least, other nations that will have benefited in some way from the genocide may be less likely to hold future perpetrators accountable. Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term in 1944 and fought for the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide four years later, had hoped to prevent exactly this outcome. It may well be the future of genocide.

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