Gaza press: one in four murdered
More than 200 media workers in Gaza have been murdered in the past two years.
Israel’s brutal method of stopping the spread of bad news is to kill the journalists. There used to be around 800 reporters, photographers and other media workers in the strip. At least 247 have died, according to the UN. Many were killed in targeted attacks. Israel does not deny this; sometimes it even gloats about them.
When TV correspondent Anas al-Sharif was blown to bits with five colleagues in August – the makeshift tent they were resting in next to a hospital was bombed from a drone – the government was announcing it even before it happened.
August 2025: Palestinians carry the body of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif during his funeral in Gaza City, alongside other journalists and one paramedic killed in the same Israeli strike on August 11 2025.
Anas al-Sharif was a widely respected journalist.
Israel said he was a Hamas commander
The five other journalists killed in same attack targeting their tent outside Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital complex were Al Jazeera crew members Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal, as well as freelance journalist Mohammad al-Khaldi. The killings came after months of threats to al-Sharif’s life by Israeli forces.
Anas al-Sharif was a widely respected journalist. Israel said he was a Hamas commander. But all six were targeted. Four were a news camera team. A week later the IDF did it again, killing another five at another hospital. Journalists work at hospitals because that is where victims are brought, and there are generators that can charge laptops and other equipment.
Whole families eliminated to intimidate reporters
Whole families have been eliminated to intimidate reporters. Wael al-Dahdouh, head of the news bureau of the Al Jazeera TV network in Gaza, was live on air when he was told that his wife, son, daughter and grandson had been killed by an Israeli air raid. He had been sent Israeli messages threatening the attack. Weeks later his eldest son, also a reporter, died when his car was hit from a drone. Wael al-Dahdouh himself was badly injured in another bombing but survived.
No war has seen so many journalists killed in such a short time. A total of 228 perished in Iraq 2003-10. The Second World War saw 69 killed in six years; 76 died in Afghanistan 2001-22 and in Ukraine so far, 15. Israel holds the record for the number killed in one strike: not in Gaza, but in Yemen. On September 16 Israel hit a newspaper office in the capital Sana’a, killing 31 journalists and four others.
Israel is killing professionals, destroying Gaza’s future
Israel’s targeted killings were concentrated on professionals whose roles represent threats to its grim vision of Gaza’s future. Journalists and doctors are obvious targets. But teachers are a longer term threat. Israel’s priority is to fend off continued resistance to its occupation by eliminating future generations of Gazans.
But they do not want those children who survive to learn about the history of Israeli occupation and mistreatment of the Palestinian people. More than 1,000 educators have been murdered: 970 school teachers and administrators, and 130 university professors and researchers.
Even worse hit are medical staff. At the end of August 2025 the Palestine ministry of health reported at least 1,581 health workers had been killed in Gaza since October 7 2023. Replacing medical specialists who have been killed takes years of training.
Reporters banned but influencers welcomed
Assassination is only one strand of Israel’s news suppression policy. The other has been to keep journalists from abroad out of Gaza altogether. A few were “embedded” with the IDF – led on brief visits to specific sites under strict conditions, which include a ban on talking to anybody and censorship of their work.
BBC correspondent Lucy Williamson was taken to the Al-Shifa hospital to be shown weapons and laptops that the IDF told her had been left behind by a Hamas control centre in tunnels below. No independent evidence of this has been found despite the best efforts of international agencies and other media.
Williamson reported that she had not spoken to hospital staff or patients – nor to the families that she had to climb over who had been bombed out of their homes. While reporters were banned, social media influencers were welcomed. Compliant Americans were flown in in August to dress up in military gear and make propaganda videos.
