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Journalists’ rights group reports 536 violations against Palestinian journalists in early 2025

August 20, 2025 at 12:23 pm

Relatives and colleagues of the Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qraiqea, photojournalists Ibrahim Dahir and Moumin Alaywa, and assistant photojournalist Mohammed Noufal, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a journalists’ tent near the Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza city center mourn during the funeral ceremony on August 11, 2025 in Gaza City, Gaza. [Yousef Al Zanoon – Anadolu Agency]

The Geneva-based Committee to Support Journalists announced on Tuesday that it has documented 536 violations against journalists and media organisations in Palestine during the first half of 2025. 

The majority of these violations were attributed to the Israeli army and settlers, representing a nearly 50 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2024.

In a statement released following a recent meeting in Beirut to unveil its semi-annual report, the committee highlighted that among the documented violations were the killings of 56 journalists in Gaza. 

According to the report, 505 violations were committed by the Israeli army and settlers, while 26 violations were attributed to Palestinian parties.

Additionally, the report noted two violations involving the blocking of content by social media platforms, as well as three other violations where the sources remained unidentified, without further elaboration on those cases.

The committee emphasised that this alarming increase in violations underscores a troubling deterioration in press freedom in Palestine, particularly amid Israel’s ongoing military operations in the Gaza Strip, which have intensified since October 2023.

Founded in 2016 in Geneva by a group of media professionals, the Committee to Support Journalists is an independent, non-profit organisation dedicated to defending the rights of journalists, writers, photographers, and media workers.

READ: Israeli army kills another Palestinian journalist in Gaza, death toll rises to 239