At least 137 journalists and media workers have been killed in and around Gaza as of 19 November 2024, ever since the Israel-Hamas war began on 7 October 2023. Of them, 129 are Palestinian, two are Israeli, and three are Lebanese. Forty-seven journalists were reported injured, two reported missing and 74 reported arrested, according to the US-based non-profit, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Other unofficial counts and conservative estimates by various organizations say more than 180 journalists could have been killed in Gaza since October last year.
The number of journalists killed who have lost their lives in war has jumped multiple times since 20 October 2023, when Indian Printer and Publisher first noted the number of fatalities. The death toll on 20 October 2023 was 21. It rose to 48 on 19 November 2023, 83 on 10 January 2024, 88 on 19 February 2024, 100 on 19 May 2024 and 116 on 16 September 2024. CPJ says it is the deadliest period for journalists since it began gathering data in 1992.
A CPJ report says journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, famine, the displacement of 90% of Gaza’s population, and the destruction of 80% of its buildings. CPJ is investigating more than 130 additional cases of potential killings, arrests and injuries, but many are difficult to document amid these harsh conditions.
“Since the war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest price – their lives – for their reporting. Without protection, equipment, international presence, communications, or food and water, they are still doing their crucial jobs to tell the world the truth,” says the CPJ report quoting CPJ program director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth. Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”
CPJ says the list is updated regularly, with names removed if it is confirmed that those members of the media were not working journalists when they were killed, injured, or went missing.
United Nations experts say they were “alarmed at the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers killed, attacked, injured and detained in Palestinian territory, particularly in Gaza.”
In fact, on the eve of the 10th International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on November 2, Israel appeared on the annual Global Impunity Index for the first time since its 2008 inception – with zero official investigations underway, and no accountability for even documented, apparently targeted killings.
