Last year was the deadliest on record for journalists. For the third year in a row, Israel killed more journalists and media workers than any other country amid the war in Gaza, according to a report released Wednesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The report found an increase in the use of drones to kill journalists, with 39 documented cases: 28 by Israel’s military in Gaza, five by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan and four by Russia in Ukraine. The CPJ documented just two drone killings in 2023.
Of the 129 journalists killed around the world in 2025, the Israeli military was responsible for 86, about two-thirds of the deaths, the CPJ found. The death toll is the highest since the New York-based press freedom group started tracking the killing of journalists in 1992.
The Israel Defense Forces “strongly rejects the claims” presented in the report, the IDF said in a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday.
“The IDF does not intentionally harm journalists or their family members, and on the contrary, operates solely against military targets, in accordance with international law, and employs all possible measures to mitigate harm to civilians, including journalists,” the statement said. “Any claim of intentional harm to civilians — including family members of journalists due to their professional activity, is completely false.”
The second-highest number of killings occurred in Sudan, where nine journalists were killed. Mexico was third with six deaths, followed by Russia with four and the Philippines with three. The Russia tally includes Ukrainian journalists killed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
The Israel-Gaza war is the deadliest conflict on record for journalists, according to the CPJ, with 252 killed as of early January. The CPJ determined that 249 of them were killed by Israel, 209 of whom were Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas killed two Israeli journalists in its Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attack on Israel.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 70,000, the majority of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, following the Hamas attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people Oct. 7, 2023. In the wake of a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump in October, Israeli strikes in Gaza have continued.
“Attacks on the media are a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators,” CPJ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement. “We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”
After an Israeli strike on Nasser hospital in Gaza in August killed journalists Mariam Dagga, Hussam al-Masri, Mohammed Salama, Moaz Abu Taha and Ahmed Abu Aziz — who were all working with prominent news outlets — and prompted calls for accountability from rights groups, the IDF said in a statement that it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and does not target journalists as such.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the attack was a “tragic mishap.”
Israel’s strikes on Gaza meant Palestinian journalists were covering the same bombardments they were trying to survive. In 2023, 77 journalists were killed in the Israel-Gaza war, 72 of whom were Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes. In 2024, Israel killed 82 journalists in Gaza and three in Lebanon, per the CPJ
Last year, 52 of the 86 journalists killed by Israel were Palestinians in Gaza. The 2025 tally also includes journalists killed by Israel in Iran and Yemen. Meanwhile, one Palestinian journalist was killed by a Palestinian armed group in Gaza in October, by the CPJ’s count.
There have been no credible investigations by Israel of these killings since the Israel-Gaza war began with the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, said Sara Qudah, the CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa regional director.
Israel said it opened an inquiry into the strikes on Nasser hospital. It also said it was reviewing a 2023 Israeli attack in Lebanon that killed a Reuters journalist and injured other reporters, including an American, but U.S. lawmakers said in December that Israel has not held the perpetrators accountable.
“Impunity is becoming a pattern and a norm,” Qudah told The Post. “Israel is able to target and kill journalists with full impunity, with no investigation and no accountability.”
Israel has levied claims, without providing substantial evidence, that some of the journalists it killed were legitimate targets due to accusations that they were working with Hamas, which their outlets have denied. Some journalists were killed in the course of their lives in a war zone, with no sign of targeting. The press freedom group said Israel was undertaking the most “deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that CPJ has ever documented.”
Qudah said she hoped the International Criminal Court would investigate the killings. “Those who killed these journalists and those who ordered the killings of these journalists should be held accountable and prosecuted,” she said.
The CPJ includes the killing of a journalist in the index if evidence such as interviews with witnesses or verified footage shows they were killed in the line of work — either accidentally in a conflict zone or on a dangerous assignment, or deliberately because of their reporting. The press freedom group determined that 47 of the journalists killed last year were deliberately killed for their work. Under international humanitarian law, journalists are considered civilians and should not be targeted.
The index includes reporters who gather the news and media workers such as interpreters, drivers and fixers.
The killing of journalists in Mexico and the Philippines underscores systemic safety risks facing reporters in both countries, according to the CPJ: At least one journalist has been killed in Mexico every year for the past decade.
But more than 75 percent of all journalists slain in 2025 were killed in conflict settings, including Gaza, along with Sudan and Ukraine.
Killings have continued into 2026. In January, the Israeli military struck and killed three journalists, including a CBS News contributor, as they traveled in their car south of Gaza City, rescue officials and local reporters told The Post last month.
The IDF said in a statement that its troops had identified “several suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas in the central Gaza Strip, in a manner that posed a threat to their safety.” The statement did not clarify how the IDF drew the connection to Hamas, or whether it had identified the targets as journalists.
Lior Soroka contributed to this report.
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