Ever since the Gaza war began in October 2023, Indian Printer & Publisher has been documenting the deaths of journalists and other media workers, quoting CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) or RSF (Reporters Without Borders) data.
According to the latest information available, as of 12 December 2025, at least 249 journalists and media workers were among the thousands killed in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Israel, and Iran since the Israel-Gaza war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
Of the 249 fatalities, CPJ says 246 journalists and media workers were killed by Israel, of which 206 were Palestinians killed in Gaza, 31 Yemenis in Yemen, six Lebanese in Lebanon, and three Iranians in Iran. Apart from these, two Israeli media workers were killed in Israel by Hamas, and one Palestinian journalist was killed by an armed group in Gaza.
In addition, CPJ says it is “investigating more than 130 additional cases of potential journalist killings, arrests, and injuries, and damage to media offices and homes, cases that remain difficult to document and verify amid what human rights organizations and United Nations experts deem a genocide.”
“Since October 7, 2023, Palestinian journalists have been slaughtered with impunity, while the world watches. This is a direct, unprecedented assault on press freedom,” CPJ regional director Sara Qudah says in a blog post. “Journalists cannot carry out their work — let alone survive — while being deliberately starved and denied life-saving aid. Israel must allow humanitarians, international media, and human rights investigators into Gaza at once.”
According to RSF, nearly half (43%) of the journalists slain in the past 12 months were killed in Gaza by Israeli armed forces. Likewise, in Ukraine, the Russian army targeted foreign and Ukrainian reporters. Sudan has emerged as an exceptionally deadly war zone for news professionals, RSF says. In Mexico, organized groups are responsible for the alarming spike in journalist murders seen in 2025.
503 journalists are currently detained around the world, RSF says, adding the world’s largest prison for journalists is still China (121), with Russia (48) in the second place, imprisoning more foreign journalists than any other state: 26 Ukrainians. Myanmar (47) comes third, RSF says in a round-up.
“They were killed, targeted for their work. It is perfectly legitimate to criticise the media — criticism should serve as a catalyst for change that ensures the survival of the free press, a public good. But it must never descend into hatred of journalists, which is largely born out of — or deliberately stoked by — the tactics of armed forces and criminal organizations,” says Thibaut Bruttin, RSF director general.
Gaza at UN
The killings of media professionals in Gaza were the focus of a seminar at the UN headquarters this month to discuss the dangers and complexities of reporting from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The conversation “could not be more timely, nor more necessary,” said Melissa Fleming, head of the department of global communications (DGC), which organized the 2025 United Nations International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East. Fleming read out a message from UN secretary-general António Guterres, who said that “journalists in Gaza have been facing the same risks and realities as the people they cover – including displacement, famine and death.”
A new report by UNESCO also warns of a serious decline in freedom of expression and the safety of journalists worldwide. The report says that in the 2022-2025 period, 186 journalists were killed while covering wars and conflict zones – a 67% increase over the 2018-2021 period. In 2025 alone, 93 journalists have been killed – 60 in conflict zones. UNESCO’s numbers, however, are much lower than those of CPJ and RSF, or even what was quoted in the recent UN media seminar.
