Israel Has Killed a Staggering Number of Palestinian Journalists Since the Start of the War in Gaza

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It’s an atrocity recorded live.

On Monday, at approximately 10 a.m., the Israel Defense Forces attacked Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital, the only fully functioning major hospital in southern Gaza. The first strike was to the fourth floor, hitting a Reuters-operated live broadcast point and killing Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters cameraman. First responders and journalists rushed to aid the wounded and document the attack, but a second strike hit the same spot minutes later.
It kills 20—including five journalists—and wounds dozens more. Among the journalists killed were Mariam Abu Dagga, a freelance photographer for the Associated Press; Mohammed Salama, a cameraman for Al Jazeera; Moaz Abu Taha, a freelance photographer; and Ahmed Abu Aziz, a correspondent for Middle East Eye and Quds News Network. Reuters photographer Hatem Khaled was seriously injured in the second strike and later died.

The Israeli military later claimed that the target had been a “Hamas camera” in proximity to media broadcasters. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident a “tragic mishap,” and a military investigation has been announced. However, independent analysts say that nearly all past investigations by Israeli authorities into similar incidents remain unresolved.

Gaza has become the deadliest war zone for journalists in modern history. According to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, between October 2023 and August 2025, a total of 197 journalists and media workers have been killed; 189 of them were Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.

Few voices are better positioned to unpack what this strike means for journalism and global accountability than Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of CPJ. A former Reuters journalist, Ginsberg has led the organization in investigating all accounts of journalists being killed, injured, or imprisoned across the world. Since the beginning of Israel’s offensive in Gaza in October 2023, she has been sounding the alarm about the unprecedented death toll of Palestinian journalists. We discussed the Nasser Hospital strike, Israel’s pattern of targeting journalists, media failures in covering the war, and the chilling global normalization of hate toward reporters. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Aymann Ismail: What is your current understanding of the Nasser Hospital strike?

Jodie Ginsberg: There was an initial strike that hit a stairwell where members of the media were known to operate. In many war zones, not just Gaza, journalists work near hospitals. It’s where they can speak to the injured, get a clear picture of the events, and importantly, because hospitals are considered civilian infrastructure protected under international law, they are supposed to be safe. Reuters had a livestream running from the premises at the time. That first strike, believed to have come from a tank, killed Hussam al-Masri, the Reuters cameraman. About 10 minutes later, after other journalists and first responders rushed in to help the wounded, there was a second strike. This “double-tap” strike hit the same spot, killing most of the victims.

The second strike was livestreamed. I watched it, along with the gruesome aftermath. It’s as awful as one would expect: people out in the open taking a direct hit from a tank shell. [Since recording our conversation, new video revealed the second strike was “in fact two near-simultaneous strikes,” as reported in CNN.] The explosion was so large that med students inside the hospital were among those killed. The doctor who asked those rescuers to come help before the “double tap” said he still couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. After nearly two years of seeing footage like this, is any of it shocking anymore?

It’s horrifying. As a former Reuters journalist, it’s horrifying to watch colleagues in Gaza living through this terror for years. Even the places they thought were safe aren’t safe. Journalists there are not only living the war; they’re reporting it, reliving it, and sharing it with the world. They’re experiencing it again as they tell the story. I can’t imagine what that’s like for them.

Does this particular attack fit into a larger pattern of journalist killings in Gaza?

An unprecedented number of journalists have been killed by Israel. Our documentation shows that 197 journalists have been killed since the start of the war, all but two by Israel. One hundred eighty-nine of them are Palestinians killed by Israel. That includes journalists killed alongside their families when entire buildings were targeted, as well as individuals who appear to have been deliberately targeted. To put that into perspective, from 2020–22, a total of 165 journalists and media workers were killed worldwide. So, in just two years, more journalists have been killed by Israel than were killed globally in the three years prior. In this case, we’re still unclear whether the Israeli army knew that those specific individuals were journalists, but it’s almost certain they knew that civilians were present.

I spoke with a survivor of one such attack, Mohammed Mhawish, a journalist who documented his own experience of being subject to an attempted killing via Israeli airstrike, which collapsed his home onto him and his family, including his 3-year-old. Have you spoken to journalists on the ground recently? What have they told you about watching their colleagues die and continuing to work?

They’re exhausted, demoralized, and desperate. Imagine living through a war and reporting on it every day for two years and feeling as if no one is listening. Journalists do this work because they hope that documenting events will lead to action. But for them, the situation has only worsened. They’re reporting on starvation while experiencing starvation, and they’re seeing very little change.  

Israel has labeled some of these journalists “militants.” I even saw the term combat propagandist used for the first time during this conflict. Does CPJ investigate the backgrounds of these journalists? What does your evidence show, and what do you make of these justifications for targeting them?

We investigate every journalist who is killed, injured, or arrested anywhere in the world, including Gaza. What we’re looking for is whether they are engaged in fact-based reporting and dissemination. International humanitarian law is clear: The only individuals who can be considered legitimate targets in war are those directly involved in active combat. Expressing sympathy for proscribed organizations, or even engaging in propaganda, does not make someone a legitimate target.

So even if it were true that someone worked for Hamas or Islamic Jihad but wasn’t armed, if they were, say, a “combat propagandist,” would that make them a legitimate target?

Our job is to determine whether someone was engaged in journalism and whether their work involved gathering and disseminating news and information. Political leanings aren’t relevant to that determination. Under international humanitarian law, only active combatants are considered legitimate targets. Engaging in propaganda does not make someone an active combatant. We get this response often: But they expressed sympathy for Hamas. There have been people who expressed sympathy for the IRA or the ANC in previous decades. That didn’t make them terrorists, nor legitimate targets.

The U.N. and humanitarian groups have already called the strike on Nasser Hospital a possible war crime. Israel has said it regrets the attack and will launch an inquiry. In your view, what would a credible investigation look like?

It would be full and transparent, include independent oversight, and result in accountability. Unfortunately, based on our experience, not just in this war but over decades, these investigations are rarely transparent, lack independent oversight, and have never once resulted in accountability for the killing of a journalist.

For two years, we’ve been consistent in calling for accountability and international access. More recently, we’ve pushed to ensure that journalists can leave Gaza for medical treatment and respite if they wish. We’ve done that publicly, through coordinated open letters from international media organizations, and privately, through direct government advocacy. We’re also continuing to look for other ways to pressure Israel to meet its international obligations.

It’s hard to assign intent at this stage, but it seems as if either Israel is intentionally targeting journalists or Gaza is simply an especially dangerous environment for reporters.

I think both are true. Human rights groups and U.N. experts have determined that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. The latest figures are around 63,000 Gazans killed since the start of the war. Part of this high number reflects the scale of civilian casualties overall. But there are also many journalists who appear to have been deliberately targeted for being journalists in an attempt to control the narrative and censor reporting coming out of Gaza.

You’re in a unique position. You’re a journalist yourself, and now you’re part of a global watchdog trying to protect journalists. You’re sounding the alarm about an unprecedented rate of journalist killings. How has this experience been for you, and how would you characterize the way this has been covered in the media?

This is the worst two years for journalism I’ve ever experienced. For much of that time, it has felt like shouting into the void. People aren’t willing to treat journalists in Gaza as journalists, the way they did in places like Afghanistan or Ukraine. I think this has been reported without the prominence, clarity, or horror it deserves. We’ve seen extensive dehumanization in the language used to describe Palestinians and Gaza: passive and obfuscating language, the repetition of slurs and smears against journalists without question or challenge. The press needs to deeply reflect on how its coverage has contributed to a broader desensitization to what’s happening in Gaza.

And on a personal level, what has it been like for you leading CPJ through what will surely go down as a historic loss of life in the journalistic community?

At the start of the war, we knew we had to document very carefully what was happening, because without that, everything would be hearsay and speculation. Documentation was our biggest focus, and that careful work is what allows us to speak now with authority and urgency. It’s not about emotion, no matter how emotional this feels. It’s about using the resources you have to achieve the outcome you want: a world where journalists are protected and not killed, no matter where they are. Achieving that can look different depending on the moment. Sometimes it’s sitting down with people you dislike to negotiate. Sometimes it’s calling them out publicly. Sometimes it’s gathering all the data quietly so you’re fully prepared when you need to act. Other times, it’s responding immediately to alert people to a threat. For example, about four weeks ago, we went public with a statement about a journalist, Anas Al-Sharif, who we felt was under acute threat. Journalists are often smeared, but based on our experience, his situation was particularly dangerous. That’s why we spoke out quickly. [Two weeks after that statement was published, Israel killed Al-Sharif in a targeted strike just outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.] So, for me, choosing words is always about understanding what will have the most impact at that moment.

It feels like walking a tightrope. It’s very difficult to answer because our mission is to protect journalists, and every day it’s heartbreaking to wake up knowing we haven’t been able to do that. But we are not the ones being targeted. We’re not starving. We’re not reporting on, or watching, our own friends and family being killed. So it feels like a huge responsibility to try to meet this moment as best we can.

What do you make of criticisms that accuse CPJ of being unfairly focused on Israel?

We’re equal-opportunity offenders. This isn’t about a personal or political crusade. I grew up in a newsroom environment where it wasn’t about bylines or politics. You reported the facts in front of you. That’s what we strive to do every day. We’re not taking sides; we’re reporting facts. It’s a fact that 197 journalists have been killed since the start of the war. You can question our methodology, or whether you consider all of them journalists, but we’ve been transparent about how we verify those numbers. We do it the same way, whether it’s Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, or Sudan. If journalists are threatened, we’ll document it and call it out. During this war, we even published a report about threats against journalists from Hamas. This isn’t about politics. It’s about documenting journalists’ experiences worldwide.

I was looking at CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, which states that about 80 percent of journalist killings go unpunished. What comes to mind when I read that figure back to you?

First, that number is probably an underestimate. Our methodology focuses on cases where we have reason to believe that a journalist was deliberately killed for their work. In many countries, it’s difficult to even make that determination because there’s so little access to investigate the deaths. So the true number is likely much higher. What really worries me is that I don’t see the situation improving. That doesn’t necessarily mean I expect more journalists to be killed, but I do think we’re in a very dangerous and disturbing period for press freedom globally. The idea that journalists deserve protection has been eroded by world leaders who openly denigrate and demean the press to push their own narratives, putting journalists at greater risk. Twenty-five years ago, my colleagues covering politics in the U.K. or U.S. weren’t receiving death threats. Now I have colleagues covering the White House who receive them almost daily. These aren’t things you can shrug off as “just the internet.” They have real-world and emotional consequences. So, for me, the impunity figure represents the broader environment for journalists today, one that is far more febrile and dangerous than the world I entered a quarter-century ago.

I get that. I receive threats almost daily. Lots of journalists I know do. It’s just noise, isn’t it?

The fact that it feels like noise tells you everything about where we are. That’s not normal. It’s not normal to say, “You wrote something I disagree with. I’d like to kill you and your family.” But we’ve normalized that. We’ve normalized attacks on public figures, on people providing information others don’t like. The position that puts journalists in—people whose job is to provide fact-based information—is terrifying. It means that the people tasked with telling these stories are now squarely in the firing line.

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