After a year and a half of war, nearly 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed by the Israeli army — including at least 43 slain on the job.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has brought multiple complaints before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and continues to tirelessly support Gazan journalists, working to halt the extraordinary bloodshed and the media blackout imposed on the strip.
Now, RSF has launched a petition in World Press Freedom Day week demanding an end to the ongoing massacres and calling for the besieged enclave to be opened to foreign media.
- READ MORE: NZ fares well in latest RSF press freedom index as authoritarian regimes stifle Asia-Pacific media
- RSF 2025 World Press Freedom rankings
- RSF World Press Freedom Index 2025: economic fragility a leading threat to press freedom
- Other Gazan journalist reports
“Journalists are being targeted and then slandered after their deaths,” RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin said during a recent RSF demonstration in Paris in solidarity with Gazan journalists.
“I have never before seen a war in which, when a journalist is killed, you are told they are really a ‘terrorist’.”
The journalists gathered together with the main organisations defending French media workers and press freedom on April 16 in front of the steps of the Opéra-Bastille to condemn the news blackout and the fate of Palestinian journalists.
The slaughter of journalists is one of the largest media massacres this century being carried out as part of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
RSF said there was “every reason to believe that the Israeli army is seeking to establish a total silence about what is happening in Gaza”.
This was being done by preventing the international press from entering the territory freely and by targeting those who, on the ground, continue to bear witness despite the risks.
Mobilisation of journalists in Paris, France, in solidarity with their Gazan colleagues. Video: RSF
Last year, Palestinian journalists covering Gaza were named as laureates of the 2024 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, following the recommendation of an International Jury of media professionals.
Republished in collaboration with Reporters Without Borders.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.