Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory / Middle East & North Africa

  

Arrests of Palestinian journalists since start of Israel-Gaza war

Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, an unprecedented number of journalists and media workers have been arrested — often without charge — in what they and their attorneys say is retaliation for their journalism and commentary. As of October 11, 2024, CPJ has documented a total of 69 arrests of journalists in the Palestinian…

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Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war

Since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, journalists and media across the region have faced a hostile environment that has made reporting on the war exceptionally challenging.   In addition to documenting the growing tally of journalists killed and injured, CPJ’s research has found multiple kinds of incidents of journalists being targeted while carrying…

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A journalist and others rush toward the scene of an explosion following an Israeli strike on the outskirts of Gaza City, on September 1, 2024. (Photo: AFP/Omar Al-Qattaa)

One year and climbing: Israel responsible for record journalist death toll

One year in, Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza has exacted an unprecedented and horrific toll on Palestinian journalists and the region’s media landscape. At least 128 journalists and media workers, all but five of them Palestinian, have been killed – more journalists than have died in the course of any year since CPJ…

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Al-Jazeera journalist Wael Al Dahdouh holds the hand of his son Hamza, who also worked for Al-Jazeera and who was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Gaza on January 7, 2024.

Photos: Israel-Gaza war takes unprecedented toll on journalists

The Israel-Gaza war has been devastating for civilians, including journalists covering the conflict. While a few conflicts have taken the lives of hundreds of journalists over a period of years, no other war has taken so many journalists’ lives in such a short time span, according to CPJ data that has been gathered since 1992. Here…

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Palestinian journalist Abu Bakr Bashir covers a Japanese cultural event in Khan Yunis, Gaza, for Japan’s JIJI PRESS. (Photo: Courtesy of Abu Bakr Bashir)

I was a journalist in Gaza. The place I call home is gone now.

I was 13 when my father moved our family from Libya back to my parents’ hometown of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. It was 1994, a time of optimism. Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization had signed the Oslo Accords and Palestinians were heading toward an independent state. Gaza, with its successful businesspeople and its…

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Q&A: Journalist Shrouq Al Aila on what cameras can’t show about the war in Gaza

Gaza journalists Shrouq Al Aila and Roshdi Sarraj were on a work trip in Saudi Arabia last fall when their home became a war zone. The married couple quickly returned to Gaza to report and to be with their community. But Sarraj, the founder of local production company Ain Media, would only manage to produce…

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Why impact of Israel-Gaza war has become harder to document

Israel’s surprise attack on Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza on March 18, and the two weeks of fighting that followed, resulted in hundreds of deaths and a trail of destruction. It also left a morass of contradictory information about exactly who was killed there, who was arrested, and who went missing.   As the Israel-Gaza war…

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Diaa Al-Kahlout, Gaza bureau chief for Al-Araby Al-Jadeed

Gaza journalist Diaa Al-Kahlout describes 33 harrowing days in Israeli custody

Diaa Al-Kahlout, the veteran Gaza bureau chief for the Qatari-funded London-based newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, had been covering the Israel-Gaza war for two months when he became part of the news. On December 7, Al-Kahlout was detained along with members of his family by Israeli forces in a mass arrest in Beit Lahya in northern Gaza….

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Gaza journalists struggle to report as they ‘expect to die daily’

New York-based Hoda Osman has spent the past six months helping Gaza journalists replace cameras, laptops, and phones lost or damaged in the Israel-Gaza war. More than 5,500 miles away, in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Wafa’ Abdel Rahman coordinates humanitarian supplies and cash assistance for reporters under Israeli bombardment, while Rania Khayyat,…

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Palestinian journalists are being imprisoned by Israel in record numbers

In October, when the Israel-Gaza war began, Alaa al-Rimawi snapped into action, covering developments on J-Media, the West Bank-based news agency he directs, as well as on TikTok and Facebook. But his conflict coverage would be short-lived. Less than two weeks after the start of the war, Israel banned J-Media on security grounds and quickly…

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