Israel’s targeting of Palestinian reporters in Gaza isn’t collateral damage. It’s strategy

Protesters chant anti-Israel slogans carrying posters with pictures of Palestinian journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qreiqeh that Israel’s military targeted and killed with an airstrike on 10 August in Gaza, during a protest in the West Bank city of Ramalllah

Ahmad Tibi writes in Haaretz on 12 August 2025:

From the outset of Israel’s war on Gaza, it was clear that the assault was being waged not only against buildings and bodies, but also against facts and the people who bring them to light. Alongside relentless bombing, starvation and mass displacement, Israeli authorities enforced an information blackout, barring foreign journalists from entering Gaza while targeting local Palestinian reporters who remain.

This is not collateral damage; it is a strategy.

The latest example is killing Anas al-Sharif, a well-known Al Jazeera correspondent in an Israeli airstrike. Anas was armed only with a camera and the determination to document the war’s toll on civilians. In the eyes of the Israeli occupation, that made him a “dangerous man.” The truth he carried was more threatening than any weapon.

By closing Gaza to international media, Israel controls the narrative. On the ground, it treats Palestinian journalists not as neutral observers protected by international law, but as legitimate targets. The intention is clear: If you silence the witnesses, you can reshape history.

According to Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists, around two hundred journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023. This is the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history. The pattern is unmistakable: Journalists are not dying in random crossfire; they are being killed while doing their jobs, often while clearly identified as press.

Israel routinely defends these killings with unsubstantiated claims that the victims were terror operatives in disguise. Regardless of whether these allegations withstand scrutiny, they reliably serve their purpose: To provide a public relations shield for actions that violate the very core of the Geneva Conventions.

The international community now faces a test. Will it continue to allow the targeted killing of journalists and the media blackout of a population under siege to pass without accountability? Or will it uphold the principle that the press, especially in wartime, is not an enemy combatant?  International law is unequivocal: Journalists, like civilians, must be protected. Yet these protections mean little without enforcement.

I call for an independent, international investigation into every killing of a journalist in Gaza, and for sanctions against those who order, execute or justify such crimes.  This is not about political allegiance; it is about defending the right of the world to see and know what is being done to Gaza, with its arms and ongoing support.

Israel may believe that killing journalists can bury the truth. Israel is wrong.

The truth does not die; it is carried forward, amplified by the courage of those who risk and often give their lives to broadcast it. The blood of Gaza’s journalists will stain not only the hands that fired the missiles, but also the conscience of a world that chose not to act.

Dr. Ahmad Tibi is a lawmaker and the leader of the Ta’al party.

This article is reproduced in its entirety