List of Journalists Killed During the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

The available sources do not provide a complete named list of journalists killed during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. They instead offer partial case lists and aggregate figures that differ in date, geography, category, and method of verification.[1] Some counts cover journalists alone, while others include media workers; some include only deaths related to the war after October 7, 2023, while others address earlier periods or related fighting in Lebanon.[2]

For Gaza from October 7, 2023, through November 30, 2025, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) reported that the Gaza government media information office had listed 256 Palestinian journalists and other media personnel as killed. ITIC also reported that the International Federation of Journalists had counted at least 225 journalists and media personnel as of November 23, 2025.[1] These figures have different cutoff dates and potentially different categories; they should not be read as directly comparable totals or as a complete count for the broader conflict.[1]

Other reported figures illustrate the differences in scope. A U.S. Senate resolution citing the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) stated that at least 227 journalists and media workers had been killed in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon since October 7, 2023, including 207 Palestinians killed in Gaza.[3] A May 2026 Senate floor statement by Senator Peter Welch claimed that at least 258 journalists had been killed by Israeli security forces since October 7, 2023, including deaths in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran; it also referred to 207 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza.[8] The latter statement is broader geographically and differs in attribution from the resolution’s CPJ-attributed figure, so the two totals are not interchangeable.[3][8]

Earlier reporting also used varying definitions and periods. A May 2022 ynet article, citing CPJ, reported that 19 journalists had been killed in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict since 1992, excluding Shireen Abu Akleh; 16 of the 19 were Palestinians, and the article did not provide the names or counting criteria.[9] A separate report on CPJ’s review of deaths since 2001 described at least 20 journalists killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), 18 of them Palestinians, and said at least 13 had clearly identified themselves as media workers or been in vehicles marked with press insignia.[10] The totals cannot be reconciled from the available reporting because their periods, definitions, attribution, and inclusion rules differ.[9][10]

Aggregate counts do not necessarily establish that every person included was killed while reporting. The U.S. Department of State’s 2023 human rights report explicitly said it did not establish whether the people in the cited totals had been killed while carrying out journalistic work, and noted that CPJ was investigating the circumstances.[11] Lists may also include people employed by partisan or terrorist-organization-affiliated outlets, people alleged to have participated in hostilities, and people killed away from an active assignment.[2]

A U.S. Department of State report on 2002 named three journalists killed by IDF fire while covering clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces: Italian correspondent Raffaele Ciriello, killed in Ramallah on March 13; Palestinian photographer Imad Abu Zarha, killed in Jenin on July 12; and Voice of Palestine journalist Issam Hamza Tillawi, shot in the back of the head while reporting on a Ramallah demonstration on September 21.[12] The report said the Israeli army denied responsibility for Abu Zarha’s death, arguing there was no proof that journalists had been fired upon, while journalist and press groups rejected that account.[12]

British documentary filmmaker James Miller was shot in the neck in Rafah in May 2003 while filming a documentary about Palestinian children.[9] A military investigation lasted a year and a half; Israel’s military advocate general decided not to charge the officer suspected of firing, saying that although the firing allegedly exceeded the rules of engagement, it could not be directly linked to Miller’s injury.[9] Miller’s family rejected the Israeli investigation’s findings, and a British jury found in 2006 that he had been murdered intentionally.[9]

The death of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana’a in Gaza in April 2008 also became a subject of competing accounts. The State Department’s 2008 human rights report said an IDF tank fired an antipersonnel shell dispensing metal darts into central Gaza on April 16, killing Shana’a and three others, including two teenagers.[4] The report relayed Human Rights Watch’s view that evidence indicated the tank crew knowingly targeted Shana’a, as well as Palestinian nongovernmental organizations’ account that he had been covering the aftermath of an earlier missile attack.[4] The IDF announced in August that its investigation had cleared the tank crew; several human rights organizations criticized the IDF investigations as lacking seriousness.[4]

A CPJ review covered in later reporting examined 20 cases it believed involved journalists killed by IDF fire since 2001: 18 Palestinians and two international journalists, with 13 deaths in Gaza and seven in West Bank cities including Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin.[10] The report named Ciriello, Miller, Shana’a, and Yaser Murtaja, but did not supply a complete list of the 20 cases.[10] The IDF denied that it targets journalists, according to the same account.[10]

After Operation Protective Edge in 2014, a list circulated by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and published by the Hamas-run Gaza Information Office named 17 people said to have been killed as journalists or media personnel.[13] ITIC examined that list and identified eight people as Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, or as journalists working for Hamas media; it said six on the list were killed while covering the battlefield, while most or all of the others died in circumstances unrelated to media work.[13] These are ITIC’s classifications and assessments rather than an agreed determination of each person’s status or circumstances.[13]

ITIC highlighted the deaths of Associated Press photographer Simone Camilli and his Palestinian translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash, killed on August 13, 2014, in the Beit Lahia area of northern Gaza.[6] They were covering Gaza police engineers defusing unexploded ordnance during a ceasefire when the device exploded, killing four police engineers as well and critically wounding another AP photographer, Hatem Moussa.[6] ITIC stated that Camilli was the only foreign correspondent killed during Operation Protective Edge.[6] This case was included in the 17-person list, but the account describes an ordnance explosion during a dangerous reporting assignment rather than a direct attack on the journalists.[13][6]

ITIC said that responsibility for some of the other deaths on the 2014 list would require further examination, even as it characterized the list as manipulative.[13] That characterization is the source’s assessment; the available reports do not establish a single agreed classification of all 17 people or the circumstances of each death.[13]

Palestinian press photographer and Ain Media cofounder Yasser Abdul Rahman Murtaja, aged 30, was wounded by IDF gunfire on April 6, 2018, while filming clashes near the Gaza border fence in southern Gaza; he died the following day.[14] ITIC reported that Israeli security sources said Murtaja had also served as an officer in Hamas security services, an affiliation allegation that should be distinguished from the reported facts of his journalistic work and death.[14] A ynet account said Murtaja wore a vest identifying him as a journalist; then-defense minister Avigdor Lieberman alleged that he had operated a drone over Israeli soldiers and was a Hamas military-wing operative, while Murtaja’s colleagues denied the affiliation claim.[9] The same account reported that USAID had found no links to armed activity in its vetting of the communications company Murtaja helped establish, which received a grant a month before his death.[9]

Ahmed Abu Hussein, who worked for Gaza media outlets including Bisann News and the PFLP-affiliated Voice of the People Radio, was critically wounded while covering a demonstration near the border fence east of Jabalia on April 13, 2018.[15] After receiving treatment in Gaza, Ramallah, and an Israeli hospital, he died of his wounds; his death was reported on April 25.[15] ITIC described Abu Hussein as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), citing organizational death notices and funeral displays.[15]

CPJ called for criminal investigations into the deaths of Murtaja and Abu Hussein, among other cases, according to a ynet report.[16] The same reporting said CPJ had recorded at least 20 journalists killed by the IDF since 2001 and that at least 13 had clearly identified themselves as media workers or been in vehicles with press insignia.[16] These case counts and calls for investigation are distinct from determinations of individual responsibility, which remained disputed in the cited accounts.[9][16]

Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American Al Jazeera correspondent, was killed in Jenin on May 11, 2022, while reporting during an Israeli operation involving Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen.[17] She had covered the Israeli–Palestinian conflict for 25 years and was wearing protective gear marked “PRESS,” according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.[18] Her death became one of the most prominent and contested cases in discussions of journalist safety and responsibility for deaths during the conflict.[17][18]

A U.S. State Department statement said independent third-party examiners could not determine the bullet’s origin because it was badly damaged. After reviewing the Israeli and Palestinian Authority investigations, the U.S. Security Coordinator concluded that gunfire from IDF positions was likely responsible, but found no reason to believe the shooting was intentional.[5] The State Department’s 2023 human rights report separately relayed a UN Commission of Inquiry conclusion that Israeli forces used lethal force without justification under international human rights law in Abu Akleh’s killing.[11]

Other accounts record conflicting attribution and intent claims. Palestinian officials and Abu Akleh’s family accused Israel of deliberately killing or targeting her, while Israeli officials initially said she had been killed by a Palestinian gunman; Israel and the Biden administration were also reported as saying she may have been accidentally killed by Israeli fire.[17][9] Britannica reports that independent investigations corroborated Al Jazeera’s claim that she was shot by an Israeli soldier and that no Palestinian gunmen were nearby, and that the IDF later acknowledged the fatal bullet likely came from one of its soldiers.[18] The available accounts therefore include a U.S. assessment of likely responsibility but not a definitive finding about the bullet’s origin or intent, alongside other investigations and allegations.[18][5]

A 2022 ynet report noted calls in the United States for an investigation and the Palestinian Authority’s refusal of a joint investigation with Israel.[17] The case illustrates why reported totals and individual case narratives must distinguish the fact of a journalist’s death from separate questions of shooter identification, intent, and accountability.[17][5]

Journalists were killed on both sides during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack and the ensuing war. Jewish Virtual Library reported that Israeli journalists Ayelet Arnin and Shai Regev were killed at the Nova music festival, while Ynet photographers Roee Idan and Yaniv Zohar were killed during the attack on Israeli communities; family members of Idan and Zohar were also reported killed.[19] The Times of Israel identified Idan as killed in Kfar Aza, Zohar as killed in Nahal Oz along with his wife and two daughters, and Arnin and Regev as killed at the Nova festival near Re’im.[20]

The classification of some Israeli victims in journalist databases has itself been disputed. A July 2026 report said CPJ removed Arnin and Regev, along with Israeli media worker Oded Lifshitz, from its database because it determined they were not working or on a journalistic assignment when killed.[21] Lifshitz had been abducted from his home in Nir Oz and killed in Hamas captivity in Gaza, according to the report.[21] It said photographers Roee Idan and Yaniv Zohar remained listed, and described CPJ’s database as covering journalists killed while working or on a journalistic assignment.[21] Critics cited in the report questioned whether that criterion was applied consistently, pointing to Palestinian journalists still classified as killed on a “dangerous assignment,” including people whom the critics said were killed at home or with family.[21]

For the final days of 2023, the State Department’s human rights report relayed CPJ’s estimate that by December 31 at least 70 Palestinian journalists and four Israeli journalists had been killed in the conflict since October 7.[11] It also cited three Lebanese journalists killed in the Israel–Hezbollah conflict, producing a separate figure of 77 journalists and media workers killed from October 7 to year’s end.[11] The report separately gave a CPJ count of 72 Palestinian journalists and media workers killed in the West Bank and Gaza over the same period, while noting that the report did not establish whether those counted had been killed during journalistic work.[11] The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, by contrast, reported more than 100 journalists killed in Gaza.[11]

The State Department’s 2023 report also cited CPJ documentation of 20 journalists killed in Gaza before October 7, 13 of whom were wearing or carrying press markings when killed; it said no one had been charged or held accountable for those deaths.[11] The pre-October figure is separate from the post-October totals and should not be combined with them without accounting for differences in period and scope.[11]

ITIC reported that on January 29, 2024, the Gaza government information bureau announced a death count of 122 journalists. The announcement followed reports that veteran Palestinian television broadcaster Issam al-Lulu had been killed with family members in an attack in al-Zuweida, and that Muhammad Abd al-Fatah Atallah, who worked for Hamas’s al-Risalah media, had been killed with family members in an attack on the al-Shati refugee camp.[22] The figure of 122 was attributed to the bureau and was not independently verified in ITIC’s account.[22]

The State Department’s 2024 report attributed to CPJ a count of 82 journalists and media workers killed during 2024 due to the Israel–Hamas conflict.[23] It did not name the 82 people, provide a breakdown by location or alleged responsibility, or say that all had been killed while reporting; it noted that in some cases the IDF claimed those killed were embedded with Hamas terrorists.[23] The report also said two Palestinian journalists from Gaza, Nidal al-Waheidi and Haitham Abdelwahed, remained missing at the end of 2024.[23]

CPJ’s broader 2024 global figures, reported by The Times of Israel, counted at least 124 journalists killed worldwide, including 85 in the Gaza war, all attributed by CPJ to the Israeli military; 82 of those 85 were Palestinians.[24] The IDF rejected the report, said it does not intentionally target journalists, and argued that some people on the list were members of Hamas’s military wing or directly participating in hostilities.[24] The article said CPJ counted 102 journalists killed worldwide in 2023 and 69 in 2022, and described the 2024 global total as the highest since CPJ began keeping records more than three decades earlier.[24] These totals differ from the State Department’s 82 figure because the sources report different categories and scopes.[23][24]

Other named deaths during the war include Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, killed in southern Lebanon on October 13, 2023, in strikes that also injured six other clearly marked journalists.[7] The State Department’s Lebanon report relayed Human Rights Watch’s description of the incident as “an apparently deliberate attack on civilians and thus a war crime”; this was an attributed assessment, not a judicial finding.[7] An article in Media, Culture & Society reported that United Nations agencies had stated in February 2024 that 126 journalists were among 29,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza; the article did not name those journalists or identify responsibility for their deaths.[25]

Several 2025 deaths received international attention because journalists were killed in or near medical facilities and while working for major news organizations. In August, an Israeli strike at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed Associated Press freelance visual journalist Mariam Dagga, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, Al Jazeera contributor Mohammed Salama, and local reporter Moaz Abu Taha, according to The Times of Israel.[26] Health officials said two strikes killed 22 people, including five reporters, but the article named four and did not identify the fifth reporter.[26] The Hamas-run health ministry’s figures could not be independently verified in that account and did not distinguish civilians from combatants.[26]

Israel said it had targeted a Hamas surveillance camera, that the journalists were not the target, and that the attack was a “tragic mishap”; Hamas denied that those killed were terror operatives.[26] These accounts report competing claims rather than a settled determination of the circumstances or status of all those killed.[26] The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate was reported as saying that more than 240 Palestinian journalists had been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since October 7, 2023, but the article did not give an exact cutoff date, names, or the syndicate’s methods for defining journalists, verifying deaths, or attributing responsibility.[26]

On August 10, 2025, an Israeli strike in Gaza City killed Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Qreiqeh, and Al Jazeera videographers Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa, according to Al Jazeera and The Times of Israel.[27] The IDF confirmed carrying out the strike and said al-Sharif was a Hamas cell leader; Al Jazeera denied the allegations and accused Israel of targeting its staff.[27] The allegations about al-Sharif’s affiliation and the competing accounts of the strike should be kept distinct from the reported deaths and the named journalists’ roles.[27] The article gave different contemporaneous tallies—at least 186 journalists killed in the Gaza conflict according to CPJ and 237 according to the Hamas-run Gaza government media office—without providing the lists or methodologies underlying either figure.[27]

Hussam Shabat, a Gazan journalist and freelance Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent who primarily covered northern Gaza, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car near Beit Lahia on March 24, 2025, according to ITIC.[28] The same source presented an Israeli claim that Shabat was a Hamas military operative; that characterization is attributed to the Israeli side and is contested.[28] ITIC also reported that al-Sharif was killed in a targeted Israeli strike on August 10, 2025, and presented Israeli claims that he was a Hamas military operative and squad leader; the page did not independently verify those claims.[28]

Disputes over who qualifies as a journalist or media worker—and whether a person was working as a civilian journalist or participating in hostilities—shape both casualty lists and interpretations of individual deaths. Jewish Virtual Library describes lists drawn from press-freedom organizations, open-source reviews, and Israeli military claims, and notes disputes over professional status, affiliation with terrorist organizations, and participation in hostilities.[2] The sources reviewed do not establish one universally accepted standard that resolves all of these cases.[2]

In a December 2025 study, ITIC examined 266 people described as journalists or media personnel killed in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and November 30, 2025.[1] Its examination was based on the Gaza government media information office’s list and additional names published in Palestinian media; ITIC assessed organizational affiliations using evidence it said showed membership or employment by organization-affiliated media outlets.[1] ITIC concluded that at least 157 of the 266—about 60 percent—were members of or clearly affiliated with terrorist organizations, including 104 linked to Hamas and 45 to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[29] The study described a body of evidence including public records, Palestinian media reports, and Hamas documents seized by the IDF, while acknowledging that some individuals’ ties were unclear or unverified.[29]

ITIC’s classification is its analysis, not a neutral or universally agreed determination of who qualifies as a journalist or of each person’s status.[1] The source’s count of 266 people examined is not identical to the two aggregate figures ITIC attributed to the Gaza government media office and the International Federation of Journalists, which had different dates and categories.[1] Those distinctions matter: the study’s conclusions about organizational affiliation do not by themselves establish whether each person was reporting when killed or directly participating in hostilities.[1]

Other advocacy and reporting sources have published lists focused on alleged terrorist-organization affiliations. HonestReporting said CPJ had identified 212 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza as of February 23, 2026, and that 102 were members or affiliates of Gaza-based terrorist organizations; the article presented these as reported claims, not as an independently verified or universally accepted roster.[30] Its examples included Mohammad Jarghoun, identified as a Smart Media journalist, and Mohammad Al-Salhi, identified as a Fourth Authority news agency photojournalist, both reported killed on October 7, 2023, as well as Ahmed Shehab, described as working for Voice of the Prisoners radio and reported killed on October 12.[30] The list included many later entries and said it was based on CPJ’s count while excluding journalists solely affiliated with Fatah or the Palestinian Authority.[30]

The IDF said in October 2026 that it had identified 170 people killed in Gaza during the war who had been presented as journalists or media personnel but were, according to its investigation, members of terrorist organizations.[31] The reported military breakdown was 118 members of Hamas’s military wing, 49 of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, two of the Popular Resistance Committees, and one of the Mujahideen Brigades; the IDF also said 17 had taken part in the October 7 attack on Israel.[31] The Times of Israel reported that the military said its evidence included visual material and organizational documents, some recovered in the field.[31] These are IDF findings and claims, not independent determinations established by the reporting.[31]

The sources differ in describing the final person in that breakdown: The Times of Israel identified the affiliation as the Mujahideen Brigades, while a Jewish Virtual Library page described a person as belonging to the Lords of the Desert organization.[31][32] The discrepancy is a difference in source descriptions, not a basis for selecting one classification as settled fact.[31][32]

CPJ’s methodology provides another approach to the classification problem. In a review of 229 deaths recorded between October 2023 and August 2026, CPJ removed 20 people after determining they had engaged in combat and removed three because they did not qualify as journalists or media workers, with one person counted in both categories.[33] It reinstated six people after finding their deaths were work-related and reclassified some others between “journalist” and “media worker.”[33] CPJ said it gathered information from at least two people who knew the subject in 220 of the 229 cases and commissioned an external audit.[33] Its stated policy excludes people it determines engaged in combat but does not treat affiliation with a terrorist organization alone as sufficient to exclude someone who was working as a civilian journalist and was not directly participating in hostilities.[33]

The reported CPJ revisions also illustrate why snapshots of a database can change. A September 2026 ynet report said CPJ removed 22 Palestinians from its Gaza-war list after a review of new information about alleged connections to terrorist organizations, including obituaries from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that described some people as fighters.[34] One named example was Abdullah Iyad Breis, described as chief photographer for the Hamas Ministry of Education television channel, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his family home in Khan Younis in January 2024.[34] The Jerusalem Post reported that CPJ’s tally as of June 25, 2026, was 209 journalists and media workers killed by Israel in Gaza and Israeli detention since October 7, 2023, but its account of CPJ’s later review did not give a new overall total.[35] The count therefore depends not only on the period covered but on subsequent case-by-case decisions.[33][35]

Journalist deaths have significance beyond casualty accounting because they affect reporting access, institutional confidence, and debates over accountability. CPJ argued that the absence of accountability in the 20 cases it reviewed had a chilling effect on press freedom, while the IDF said it does not target journalists and investigates suspected unlawful harm.[10] The changing treatment of individual cases by casualty databases also shows how classification decisions can shape public claims about the scale and character of the conflict.[33]

The aggregate figures in the available sources differ for reasons that are not always fully documented: reporting dates, geographic coverage, definitions of journalist and media worker, and rules for deciding whether a person was on assignment or had participated in hostilities.[2][2] Some reports explicitly say that their figures do not identify every person counted or establish how each died. The State Department’s 2024 report, for example, attributed a total of 82 deaths to CPJ but supplied neither names nor a location-by-location breakdown.[23]

Even cases with substantial reporting may retain unresolved questions. For Abu Akleh, the U.S. assessment found IDF-position gunfire likely responsible but could not definitively establish the bullet’s origin and found no reason to believe the shooting was intentional; other accounts report different investigations and allegations.[18][5] In Shana’a’s case, a human-rights organization’s assessment, the IDF’s investigation, and criticism of that investigation are reported separately rather than as a single agreed finding.[4] In the case of Issam Abdallah, Human Rights Watch’s description of an apparently deliberate attack and a war crime remains an attributed assessment, not a judicial finding.[7]

The record also includes deaths that do not fit a simple category of a journalist killed by fire while covering hostilities. Camilli and Abu Afash died while reporting during a ceasefire as police engineers handled unexploded ordnance.[6] Israeli journalists were killed in the October 7 attack, and some were removed from CPJ’s database because the organization determined that they were not on journalistic assignment when killed.[19][21] These distinctions help explain why casualty totals may count or exclude the same individuals under different criteria.[21]

Accordingly, aggregate totals should be presented with their source, cutoff date, geography, and stated category, rather than as a definitive count of all journalists killed in the conflict. Named examples can document individual lives and circumstances, but the available sources do not establish a comprehensive, standardized list of every case.[1][2]