All wars are dangerous to cover, but Gaza holds a place of its own among modern conflicts for the peril faced by journalists. Some 200 journalists have been among the estimated 63,000 people killed since the Gaza war began — an overwhelming majority killed by the Israeli military. Those deaths have helped make the past two years the deadliest period for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization, started keeping records in 1992.
The deaths are one more layer of the agonizing human tragedy in Gaza. Families and neighborhoods have been destroyed, and many brave journalists have lost their lives while attempting to help the world understand the war. Nearly all of these journalists have been Palestinian because Israel has barred outside members of the media from entering Gaza.
That ban on outside media is both outrageous and self-defeating. Israel’s leaders and defenders often argue that they are held to a different standard during wartime from other nations, and they are sometimes correct about that. But the refusal to allow international journalists to cover the war on the ground is an example of the Israeli government failing to follow a standard that many other governments, especially democracies, follow. The United States allowed reporters to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ukraine allows journalists in to cover its war with Russia.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government seem to believe that keeping foreign journalists out of Gaza advances their narrative. In Israel it may help serve that purpose by giving some Israelis an excuse to dismiss coverage of Gazan suffering as Palestinian propaganda. Globally, though, the policy has spectacularly failed: Thanks to social media and the work of those brave Palestinian journalists, people can see the mass killing, severe hunger and wholesale destruction in Gaza, and it has prompted an outcry. Keeping out the international media indicates that Israel’s leaders are trying to conceal the war’s full horror. It evokes the failed attempts by American leaders to bury the truth during the Vietnam War.
The ban also seems to be contributing to the Israeli government’s callousness toward the journalists who are covering the war. Often, war-fighting governments take steps to reduce the risks to journalists covering the conflict. Yes, on-the-ground reporting remains dangerous, but military planners nonetheless take account of where journalists are operating and how they might be protected. Israel has failed in this regard. It seems likely that Israel would have tried harder if the journalists in question included more Americans and other nationalities. (The New York Times was among more than 100 news organizations to sign a letter in February 2024 calling on Israel to live up to international law and protect Palestinian journalists who continue to report, “despite grave personal risk.”)
An attack last week offered a terrible and telling example. Israel has sometimes used so-called double-tap strikes in Gaza, in which an initial strike is followed by another, with the purpose of maximizing damage to the enemy. Yet journalists and emergency medical personnel are often first to the scene. On Monday the Israeli military shelled Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, later saying that it had targeted what it thought was a Hamas surveillance camera. Moments after the first attack, a second occurred. In all, at least 20 Palestinians were killed, including five journalists from The Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye. Most of the casualties came from the second strike.
Mr. Netanyahu called it a “tragic mishap,” said that Israel values journalists and promised a military investigation. But Israel’s use of the double-tap tactic in urban warfare is a sign of its disregard for civilian life and for the people trying to ascertain the truth of the war.
To be clear: Hamas is hardly a model of open information. It has long behaved as a brutal totalitarian government in Gaza that threatens, punishes and sometimes kills people who attempt to speak the truth. Ibrahim Muhareb, a journalist who was beaten unconscious by men who said they were from Gaza’s police investigations department, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that one of them said, “The spy and the journalist are one and the same.” The Gaza of the future deserves a free press wholly different from what Hamas and Israel have permitted.
Israel has responded to criticism of the deaths of Gaza’s journalists by arguing that some of them are Hamas agents. At the very least, some media outlets are affiliated with Hamas or other extremist groups, such as Islamic Jihad. But it is unacceptable for Israel to smear the many courageous journalists doing vital work under almost impossible circumstances — including some for The Times — by suggesting that they are combatants. Israel has offered little, if any, evidence for its claims, while cynically keeping out international journalists.
Two weeks ago, 28 countries, including Britain, France and Germany, called on Israel to give immediate media access to Gaza, saying that journalists “play an essential role in putting the spotlight on the devastating reality of war.” In refusing the independent media’s demands for access, Israel has focused on concern for their safety. That notion is largely an excuse. The world’s journalists stand ready to cover the war. Over 70 international media and civil society organizations, including The Times, declared in another letter that they “fully understand the inherent risks in reporting from war zones.”
Israel’s government has often complained that the world has relied for information on the Gaza Health Ministry and other agencies controlled by Hamas. But what do Mr. Netanyahu and his officials expect to happen when they are banning outside witnesses from Gaza? If the Israeli government wants to let the world judge for itself, it should let in the media.
Source photographs by manley099 and brainmaster, via Getty Images.
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