By The Eyeopener

If this sounds familiar, it’s because we wrote a similar editorial two years ago but felt it needed to be said yet again.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, the genocide in Gaza has become not only a humanitarian catastrophe but a war on truth. Journalists, medics and witnesses have become deliberate targets.

Killing journalists is not a tragedy of war. It is not collateral damage. It is a war crime. 

As of September 2025, the number of journalists and media workers killed in Gaza alone has surpassed 240, making it the deadliest documented conflict for journalists, according to the United Nations (UN) and Committee to Protect Journalists.

Among the most recent examples: the Aug. 25 Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which killed at least 20 people, including five journalists. The strike is suspected to have been in two parts—known as a ‘double tap’—the first bomb hit, and the second followed just as medics and reporters rushed to help.

This is not an anomaly. It is part of a pattern—one that increasingly resembles a war on documentation itself.

Journalists are targeted in war because they get in the way. Their job is to document what those in power want hidden—civilian deaths, demolished hospitals and war crimes. Their work threatens official narratives. This type of attack is the most extreme form of censorship. It disrupts the public’s right to know and cuts off communication from those living under siege.

When documentation is targeted—whether through murders, internet blackouts or the destruction of newsrooms—the truth is not just obscured, it is erased.

Journalists are civil servants. Their job is not to take sides, but to let the facts speak for themselves. We rely on reporters to verify numbers, challenge claims and hold power to account. When independent media is silenced, misinformation thrives. In Gaza, where internet access is routinely cut, and foreign media are barred entry, the risk of distortion is not hypothetical—it is already happening.

“We rely on reporters to verify numbers, challenge claims and hold power to account”

Article 79 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions formally protects journalists as civilians. The law is clear: as long as reporters do not take part in combat, they must be granted the same protections as any other civilian. But on the ground, that protection has not held. Dozens of press vests have been found next to bodies. Camera lenses smashed in bombed-out buildings. 

Beyond Gaza, Israeli strikes in Yemen have expanded the war zone and further endangered the press. An air raid in Sanaa and Al-Jawf on Sept. 11 killed 46 people, including 11 journalists, and injured 165 civilians, according to Reuters. Several Yemeni newsrooms reported that entire offices were wiped out. Apart from threatening the media, these attacks risk escalating a broader regional war and signal a dangerous willingness to expand the conflict beyond Gaza’s borders.

Back in Gaza, the crisis continues to worsen. On Sept. 13, at least 32 Palestinians—including 12 children—were killed in an overnight Israeli bombardment on Gaza City, according to the  CBC. Outside of deliberate attacks, famine is now also claiming lives. Al Jazeera reported hunger-related deaths in Gaza as of Aug. 27 had risen to 313, including 119 children. The medical system, already on the verge of collapse, cannot cope.

The total documented death toll in Gaza since October 2023 has exceeded 64,000 as of Sept. 15, with many still unreported.The UN declared on Sept. 16 that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for an attack from Hamas which killed 1,195 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. 

With Israel banning foreign media from entering Gaza, it is local reporters who carry the burden. They film, photograph, verify. They upload videos through intermittent internet. They speak to mothers searching for sons under rubble, to surgeons operating in corridors. And many of them do so until the moment they’re killed.

“Their press vests didn’t protect them. Their cameras didn’t make them bulletproof”

Take Anas Al-Sharif, a reporter killed by an Israeli drone strike on Aug. 10 while sheltering in a tent clearly marked as a press space near Al-Shifa Hospital. His death was confirmed by Al Jazeera and added to the list of the network’s killed staff. 

It’s not hyperbole to say truth is being targeted.

This is a moral emergency. There is no more grey area. 

The world must demand independent investigations into the attacks on media personnel. When the same patterns repeat—journalists killed while sleeping, while sheltering, while working—it becomes systemic.

And the purpose is clear: to ensure that the world cannot see what is happening. To prevent documentation. To erase the record. Because if no one survives to tell the story, the crime can be buried with the victim.

Because to lose journalists is to lose history.

“It’s not hyperbole to say truth is being targeted”

But truth is not only threatened by bombs and bullets. It is also endangered by those who exploit their platforms in the name of justice but fail to commit to transparency, fairness or accountability.

As the genocide enters its second year, over 200,000 Palestinian deaths or injuries have been documented, according to The Guardian. The estimated toll is much higher, exceeding 600,000 according to The Canary. In contrast, as of Sept. 10, the number of documented Israeli deaths is 1,660, according to the UN. And among the dead are hundreds of people who held cameras instead of weapons, notepads instead of shields.

Their press vests didn’t protect them. Their cameras didn’t make them bulletproof.

Truth is under attack—and the world cannot pretend it didn’t see it coming.

We at The Eyeopener stand in solidarity with the journalists killed by Israel while they were bearing witness to history. We call for an arms embargo and independent investigation into Israel’s war crimes.