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

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

In a statement released on Friday, the Freedoms Committee of the syndicate said Israel is implementing a policy of “silencing the press through killing, injury and permanent disability”.

“The Israeli occupation shifted from a policy of restricting journalistic work to a policy of neutralising the press through deadly force, with the aim of silencing witnesses, preventing the documentation of crimes, and undermining the Palestinian narrative on the ground,” the statement said.

By the end of November 2025, at least 76 Palestinian journalists had been killed and wounded by Israel, a figure the committee described as a “dangerous indicator of the escalating targeting policy” pursued by Israeli authorities. “Journalists are no longer merely ‘potential targets’, but rather confirmed and frequent targets,” the committee said.

Over the past year, Israel killed several journalists in Gaza in targeted assassinations – most notably media’s Anas al-Sharif – falsely claiming that they are members of Hamas.

Press freedom groups have been condemning the Israeli attacks on journalists, but the killings have proceeded with impunity. Israel has never arrested or charged any of its troops for killing journalists.

While the targeting of the press intensified during the genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has killed dozens of Arab journalists over the past two decades, including media’s veteran correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank in 2022.

Muhammad al-Lahham, head of the Committee for Freedoms at the syndicate, said the scale and consistency of the attacks amount to international crimes.

The events of the past year, he said, “constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, and represent a systematic targeting of a protected group, journalists, within the framework of an official policy to silence the media by force”.

Al-Lahham rejected claims that journalists had been caught accidentally in hostilities, describing instead a deliberate operational logic. What Israel was enforcing, he said, was a “field doctrine based on the principle of ‘no witnesses, no narrative, no image’”.

In December, a report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) found that Israel killed more journalists in 2025 than any other country.

Silencing witnesses

The report described 2025 as “a year of repeated mass targeting, particularly in tents, hospitals, and press gatherings”, warning that Palestine had become one of the most dangerous places in the world to practise journalism.

Several media journalists have been among those killed, in some cases alongside members of their families.

In August, Israeli attacks killed al-Sharif and three other media journalists. They are among nearly 300 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza during the war over 26 months – an average of about 12 journalists a month – according to Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named after Abu Akleh.

Beyond fatalities, the committee documented a sharp rise in life-altering injuries. Many journalists suffered amputations, paralysis or blindness after strikes to the head, neck, chest and abdomen. The dangers did not come solely from the Israeli army, the report said, but also from settlers.

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

This documented and recurring incident occurred and involved the use of heavy weaponry, “amounting to a complex war crime and a collective targeting of the press”, the committee said.

By mid-2025, patterns of permanent disability had emerged. Journalist Akram Dalloul lost his sight, Jamal Badah had his leg amputated, and Muhammad Fayeq was left paralysed.

The committee stressed that most attacks occurred while journalists were clearly identifiable, wearing protective gear and press badges, and working in locations long recognised as media gathering points. Many were targeted repeatedly, it added, underscoring what it described as Israel’s sustained assault on the Palestinian press.