As the war in Gaza grinds on, international outrage is mounting over Israel’s military campaign and its devastating toll on Palestinian civilians and journalists. On August 16, 2025, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency, made headlines by declaring that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become “a problem in himself.” In an interview with Jyllands-Posten, Frederiksen didn’t mince words: she accused the Israeli government of going “too far” and described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “absolutely appalling and catastrophic.”
Frederiksen’s remarks reflect a growing frustration among some European leaders. She revealed that Denmark is pushing for increased pressure on Israel, including the consideration of sanctions—potentially targeting settlers, ministers, or even Israel as a whole through trade or research restrictions. “We are not ruling anything out in advance. Just as with Russia, we are designing the sanctions to target where we believe they will have the greatest effect,” Frederiksen said, according to Jyllands-Posten. However, she noted that Denmark has yet to win the backing of other EU members for such measures.
The Danish leader’s comments come amid staggering statistics: since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed nearly 61,900 Palestinians in Gaza, according to multiple reports. The military campaign has not only left Gaza in ruins but also pushed it to the brink of famine. The situation has drawn international legal scrutiny as well. In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for both Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, charging them with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in the enclave.
The war’s impact on civilians is not limited to the sheer death toll. Readers of the New York Daily News have voiced their horror at the scale of the violence, with one letter writer from Bedford, N.Y., asserting, “The only ‘Nazi-level barbarians’ committing atrocities are the Israel Defense Forces under orders of their prime minister.” The letter details accusations against the IDF, including the killing of more than 70,000 unarmed civilians—almost 18,000 of them children—attacks on hospitals and places of refuge, and the targeting of humanitarian aid workers and starving Palestinians queuing for food. The writer further notes, “The IDF has killed its own hostages! It has targeted and killed journalists in clearly marked press tents.”
Indeed, the targeting and killing of journalists in Gaza has become one of the most chilling aspects of the conflict. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 192 journalists have been killed since October 7, 2023, with 184 of them Palestinians killed by Israel. At least 26 of these journalists were deliberately targeted for their work, though the actual number could be higher. The Costs of War project at Brown University puts the death toll among media workers in Gaza even higher, estimating at least 232 killed as of late March 2025. These numbers, as reported by The Guardian and other outlets, eclipse the tally of journalists killed in the US Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the wars in Yugoslavia, and the US war in Afghanistan—combined.
The dangers for journalists are not abstract. On August 10, 2025, the Israeli military killed six journalists sheltering in a tent for media workers in Gaza City. Among the dead was 28-year-old Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, a figure whose reporting had become the face of the Gaza war for millions in the Arab world. Al-Sharif’s story is emblematic of the risks faced by Palestinian journalists: since November 2023, he had received threats from Israeli military officials, urging him to stop his reporting and leave Gaza. In December, his 90-year-old father was killed in an Israeli airstrike on their family home. The Israeli military publicly accused al-Sharif and five other Al Jazeera journalists of being members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad in October 2024—a move press freedom advocates saw as a potential death sentence. The CPJ issued a statement in July 2025 expressing that it was “gravely worried” for al-Sharif’s safety.
Despite these dangers, Palestinian journalists have continued to report from the front lines, often at great personal risk. However, their plight has received scant support from many Western media organizations and governments. According to The Guardian, while major US news outlets campaigned vigorously for the release of Western journalists like Evan Gershkovich—who was detained in Russia in March 2023—there has been little comparable outcry or solidarity for Palestinian journalists killed or threatened by Israel. “Press freedom and protection from persecution, it seems, are limited to western journalists,” wrote Mohamad Bazzi, director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University, in a recent opinion piece.
One persistent demand from Western media has been for Israel to allow foreign reporters into Gaza—a request Israel has largely refused since October 2023, except for a handful of cases where journalists were embedded with Israeli troops. Some Western journalists have argued that only foreign reporters can provide “honest, unbiased eyewitness reporting” from Gaza, a stance that has been criticized as dismissive of the professionalism and courage of Palestinian journalists. As Bazzi pointed out, “Once foreign reporters are allowed into Gaza, most of them will rely heavily on Palestinian journalists, translators and other ‘fixers’ who often do the brunt of work for western correspondents.”
The international legal community has taken notice of the dangers faced by journalists. Under international law, journalists enjoy the same protections as civilians, and the deliberate targeting of journalists is considered a war crime. Yet, as the war in Gaza continues, accountability remains elusive. The ICC’s arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant have yet to be enforced, and Israel remains steadfast in its military campaign, citing the October 7 Hamas attack—which killed 1,139 people in Israel, including security guards—as justification for its actions.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens. Aid organizations and eyewitnesses describe a society on the verge of collapse, with widespread hunger, devastated infrastructure, and a population traumatized by nearly two years of relentless conflict. Images from April 2024 show Palestinians inspecting the wreckage of a World Central Kitchen vehicle destroyed by an Israeli airstrike—a grim symbol of the dangers faced by humanitarian workers and the obstacles to delivering aid.
As pressure mounts on Israel from some quarters of the international community, including Denmark and other EU members, the question remains whether words will translate into action. Frederiksen’s call for political pressure and potential sanctions reflects a growing impatience, but divisions within the EU and the broader West have so far stymied a unified response.
For the people of Gaza—and the journalists risking their lives to tell their stories—the stakes could not be higher. As the world watches, the crisis continues to unfold, demanding attention, accountability, and, above all, an urgent commitment to human rights and the protection of civilians.