Gaza Is ‘Deadliest Conflict’ for Journalists, Speakers Tell Seminar on Middle East Peace, Pointing to Western Media Bias, Impact of ‘Killing of the Messenger’
Gaza is “the deadliest conflict” for journalists, speaker after speaker underscored today at a UN seminar on journalism in Palestine, featuring reporters from there and abroad, as well as press freedom experts.
The 2025 United Nations International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East focused on the theme “Breaking Barriers: Navigating the Dangers and Complexities of Reporting from Gaza and the West Bank”. More than 260 media workers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, while journalists in the West Bank continue to face violence and intimidation.
The “killing of the messenger” is also “the killing of the witness, the killing of cumulative knowledge and memory”, Ibtisam Azem, Senior Correspondent of al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper, reflected. Since the Nakba, the collective Palestinian memory has played a huge role in Palestinian art and literature. Such memory is also crucial for international law and UN investigations. After some journalists were killed, their social media accounts were taken down, “so there is also an online kind of virtual assassination of their knowledge”, she pointed out.
The killings also send a message to global media that “reporting on Palestine, reporting the truth is not safe”, she said, because “what happens in Palestine does not stay in Palestine”. She proposed appointing a UN commissioner for media, adding that attacks on journalists are also connected to the targeting of human rights defenders and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
She highlighted the persistence of an Orientalist tradition in some of the major media outlets in the United States. The bias is clear when looking at their reporting on the invasion of Ukraine, she said. Headlines often refer to Palestinians dying; they fail to mention that Israel killed them. 7 October 2023 “is talked about as if it's something that happened in a vacuum”, she added, noting that many legacy Western publications shy away from using terms such as “Occupied Palestinian Territory” or “genocide”. Palestinian death numbers are viewed with skepticism, as was demonstrated by former United States President Joseph R. Biden. This kind of anti-Palestinian racism has caused violence against Palestinians in the United States, she pointed out.
Speaking via video message from Gaza, Wael al-Dahdouh, Bureau Chief of Al Jazeera in Gaza, reflected on why he felt compelled to report on the genocide despite personal tragedies. The Gaza Strip is a very small and overcrowded area, he said, and at the start of the current war, the Israeli occupation army isolated it from the external world, prevented foreign journalists from entering and cut electricity, water and the Internet. Gazans found that “the enemy is behind us and the sea is in front of us”, he said, and “there were no crossings, no travel, no safe places, no tent, no hospital, no school”.
Palestinian journalists realized that “if we did not fulfill our duty”, even at the cost of their own lives, “then the world will not see what is happening”. Therefore, they reported on the war, while searching for food, water and shelter, while their families were getting killed, he said. He added that it is an illusion to think that the genocide has stopped. The war continues and the world should stand unified to confront these crimes, he said.
Independent Foreign Media Still Banned from Gaza Despite Ceasefire
Tania Kraemer, Chair of the Foreign Press Association in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, said that, despite the ceasefire, Israel is still not allowing independent foreign media to enter Gaza. Noting that she has covered previous wars in Gaza, she said such harsh restrictions are unprecedented. Israel has rejected the Association’s requests for access; petitions to Israel's Supreme Court have also not succeeded — that Court has repeatedly granted the Government’s requests for delays. “We still have no idea when — or even if — we will be allowed back in,” she said.
As a result, Palestinian colleagues inside Gaza, are doing the groundwork of researching, filming, talking to people and witnessing. All of them have been “displaced, often multiple times”, and face constant danger and food shortages. Many work with broken equipment, knowing that they could become a target at any given time. The presence of foreign reporters will bring greater scrutiny of Israel's and Hamas' actions, she said, also noting settler violence against journalists in the occupied West Bank.
Protection for Palestinian Journalist, Accountability for Violators
When asked what structural changes are needed to support journalists in conflict zones, Jodie Ginsberg, Chief Executive Officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said: “Well, we have everything that we need.” The resolutions and international humanitarian law already exist; what is missing is respect for those frameworks and accountability for those who violate them. She outlined three areas for immediate, practical attention: protection, access and accountability. Palestinian journalists must be afforded the protections that are afforded to civilians in war, as well as the special protections afforded to media. Her Committee has been pushing for the suspension of the European Union-Israel Association Agreement.
It has also filed an amicus brief supporting the Foreign Press Association’s petition to the Israeli Supreme Court. Israel’s refusal to allow in journalists is unprecedented in armed conflicts, she said, also distinguishing “independent access”, from “guided access” for propaganda. On accountability, she noted that, at least in 26 cases in Gaza, journalists were targeted for being journalists. That is a deadly pattern that did not begin on 7 October 2023, and independent investigations are crucial, she said, stressing that such investigations must not be led by Israel.
Haggai Matar, Executive Director of +972 Magazine, also speaking via video, said his magazine brings together Palestinian and Israeli journalists on the ground. “Our own journalists have been targeted,” he said, noting how one had to flee multiple times. His reporters have been working amidst electricity and media blackouts, while trying to find food for themselves and loved ones. And while the scale of this kind of targeted violence is unprecedented, it is not unusual in itself — in the West Bank, journalists have been killed, beaten up and detained, and their equipment confiscated.
Both Israeli and international journalists have been forbidden from going into Gaza, he said, making it an area where only Palestinian journalists can report — the same journalists that Israel is attacking and undermining “as all Hamas”. He drew attention to how the genocide and the starvation of Gaza have been “ignored by almost all of Israeli media”. +972 Magazine’s sister site, Local Call, which is published in Hebrew, is trying to make that information available to Israelis. His publication remains accountable to human rights and international law and opposes all attacks against innocent civilians, be it by Hamas or Israel, he said.
Israeli Has Killed 18 Per Cent of Journalists in Gaza
Nasser Abu Bakr, Chairman of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate, noted that Israel has killed 18 per cent of the total number of journalists in the Gaza Strip. Over 500 Palestinian journalists have been wounded, and the occupation has arrested and tortured over 200 Palestinian journalists and has destroyed over 250 media establishments. “The Israeli occupation did not stop at that,” he said, noting that it continued to target the families of journalists — over 650 relatives of Palestinian journalists have been targeted in Gaza.
Warning that there is an official decree by the occupation Government targeting journalists, he said the UN must use its power to secure Palestinian journalists and called for the formation of a committee to investigate the crimes perpetrated against them.
“Your work as journalists — bearing witness, reporting the facts — is vital in building the informed global consensus required” to bring about a solution, said António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, in a message read out by Melissa Fleming, Chief of the UN Department of Global Communications, who moderated the panel. Ms. Fleming highlighted the work of her Department, as well as Noon Briefings by the Office of the Spokesperson of the Secretary-General in relaying information and images from Gaza.
Coly Seck (Senegal), Chair of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, noted that media workers have been targeted and even killed while broadcasting live. The images, testimonies and data that Palestinians have risked their lives to create are “not byproducts of the conflict; they are critical chronicles”, he said.
‘Israel’s Main Enemy Is the Truth’
Riyad H. Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine, said attacks on Palestinian journalists were ongoing before the genocide — Shireen Abu Akleh [killed in the West Bank in 2022] and Yasser Murtaza [killed in Gaza in 2018] were killed while wearing their press vests. Israel attacks journalists because “Israel’s main enemy is the truth”, he said. He proposed holding a high-profile conference where journalists from mainstream Western media can use their fame and position to raise awareness about the situation of their Palestinian colleagues. Ms. Ginsberg suggested that such a conference should take place in Israel or the West Bank, because “the people that we really need to convince is Israel and the Israeli people”.
In the ensuing discussion, audience members stressed the importance of holding social media platforms accountable to ensure that their algorithms are not spreading misinformation. They pointed to the biased language used by media outlets when reporting on Palestinians — examples including a nine-year-old wounded child who was referred to as a “young man” and the citing of numbers by the “Hamas-controlled Ministry”. Responding, Ms. Azem underscored that media outlets need to reflect on how close they are to power and how uncritically they treat information provided by Israeli and United States spokespeople. Ms. Ginsberg stressed that the smearing of journalists is part of Israel’s playbook.