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

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

In a statement released on Friday, the group’s Freedom Council said Israel was pursuing a policy of “silencing the press through killing, injury and permanent disability.”

“Israel’s occupation has transformed from a policy of restricting journalism to a policy of silencing the media through lethal force with the goal of silencing witnesses, preventing criminal records and undermining Palestinian narratives,” the statement said.

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

Last year, Israel carried out targeted assassinations of several journalists in Gaza – most notably that of Al Jazeera Anas Sharif – Falsely claimed to be a member of Hamas.

Press freedom groups have long condemned Israel’s attacks on journalists, but the killings have gone unpunished. Israel has never arrested or charged any of the forces responsible for killing the journalists.

While attacks on the media intensified during Gaza’s genocidal war, Israel has killed dozens of Arab journalists over the past two decades, including a senior reporter for Al Jazeera Shireen Abu Akler 2022 in the occupied West Bank.

Mohamed Laham, chairman of the group’s Freedom Council, said the scale and persistence of the attacks amounted to an international crime.

He said the events of the past year “constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity and are the systematic targeting of journalists, a protected group, within the framework of an official policy of suppressing the media with force.”

Laham rejected claims that journalists were accidentally arrested during hostilities, describing instead a deliberate operational logic. He said Israel was implementing “a live doctrine based on the principle of ‘no witnesses, no narratives, no images'”.

December, one Report Reporters Without Borders (RSF) found that Israel killed more journalists in 2025 than any other country.

Suppressing the voices of witnesses

The report describes 2025 as “a year of repeated large-scale attacks, particularly in tents, hospitals and press conferences”, and warns that Palestine has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for news coverage.

Some Al Jazeera Among the victims were journalists and sometimes their family members.

In August, an Israeli attack killed Sharif and three other Al Jazeera journalists. They were among nearly 300 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza during the 26-month war, an average of about 12 journalists per month, according to Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named after Abu Akleh.

As well as the death toll, the commission also recorded a dramatic increase in life-changing injuries. Many journalists have suffered amputations, paralysis or blindness as a result of attacks on the head, neck, chest and abdomen. The danger comes not just from the Israeli military but also from settlers, the report said.

April and May marked a phase of what the committee called a deliberate media massacre. April 7-8, Israeli air strikes press tent At Al-Nasser Hospital, nine journalists were injured and equipment destroyed. Several people later died from their injuries.

The commission said the documented, recurring incident, involving the use of heavy weapons, “constitutes a complex war crime and collective attack on the media”.

By mid-2025, a pattern of permanent disability has emerged. Journalist Akram Dalul was blinded, Jamal Badal had his leg amputated and Mohamed Fayek was paralyzed.

The committee stressed that most of the attacks occurred while journalists were clearly identified, wearing protective gear and press credentials and working in locations long considered media gathering spots. Many people were repeatedly targeted, the report added, underscoring Israel’s ongoing attacks on Palestinian media.