On Monday, September 8, 2025, the Press Freedom Committee of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) in Hong Kong gathered to honor a sobering milestone: nearly 200 journalists killed during Israel’s war on Gaza. The event, led by Morgan Davis, the club’s new president, began with a minute’s silence. Committee members then read aloud the names of the fallen media workers—an act both solemn and defiant in a world where, as Davis put it, “even one death is too much.” She added, “We shouldn’t have to read this shockingly long list of names of journalists killed while doing their jobs. But looking at a list this long that is likely to grow even further from here is horrific and should make each and every one of us angry. Journalists, regardless of their nationality or creed, deserve to work without harassment or fear of death.”
Her words echoed the mounting frustration among press advocates. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 197 journalists have been killed and 99 imprisoned since the conflict erupted in October 2023. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) puts the toll even higher, counting 220 journalists killed by the Israeli army in Gaza in less than two years. The CPJ called Israel’s campaign “the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that the NGO has ever seen.” Their statement was unequivocal: “Palestinian journalists are being threatened, directly targeted, and murdered by Israeli forces, and are arbitrarily detained and tortured in retaliation for their work. Israel has systematically destroyed media infrastructure in Gaza and tightened censorship throughout the West Bank and Israel. Inside Gaza, journalists report harassment and intimidation by Hamas.”
For many, the FCC’s event was not just a commemoration, but a call to action. The world, as Davis noted, relies on these reporters—often local journalists risking everything—to tell the stories that would otherwise remain hidden. “The people on this list knowingly put their lives on the line to report on a conflict that has otherwise been closed off to foreign media. Without them, the world would literally not hear the stories of what is happening in Gaza today,” she said.
This crisis of press freedom has reverberated globally. On August 21, 2025, the Media Freedom Coalition—a group of 51 countries established in 2019 by the UK and Canada—issued a statement denouncing violence against journalists in Gaza. The statement followed an Israeli drone strike on August 10 that killed six Palestinian journalists, including four from Al Jazeera: correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal. The Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the killings as a “blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom,” calling it “a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.”
Yet, getting that statement out was anything but straightforward. Emails obtained from Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, as reported by Al Jazeera, revealed the coalition’s internal struggle to agree on a response. Only 16 countries met the initial deadline to join the statement, and even as the secretariat extended the cutoff, more than half of the coalition’s members—including the United States, South Korea, Argentina, and the Maldives—ultimately withheld their endorsement. In the words of Tally Kapadia, project coordinator at the coalition’s London-based secretariat, “We tried our best to accommodate all red lines.” The final statement, she noted, stuck to “core issues” rather than specific events, reflecting the difficulty of forging consensus amid rapidly changing developments in Gaza. The coalition’s secretariat later explained, “Multilateral statements require agreement among many governments, and expectedly, that process takes time. The Media Freedom Coalition’s priority is to deliver strong, united positions that carry maximum impact in defending and advancing media freedom.”
While the coalition has previously spoken out about threats to press freedom in places like Russia, Turkiye, Hong Kong, and Venezuela, its August statement was the first to address the killing of journalists in Gaza since the war’s onset in October 2023. The CPJ’s grim tally—almost 200 media workers killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza—underscored the urgency of the moment. The deaths of al-Sharif and his colleagues sparked international outrage, with Reporters Without Borders and other groups joining the chorus of condemnation.
The broader context is no less harrowing. As of Wednesday, September 10, 2025, Gaza’s health ministry reported a death toll of 64,718—mostly civilians—since the conflict began. The Lancet medical journal suggested in January that the actual toll might be up to 41 percent higher. Meanwhile, UNICEF warned that child malnutrition in Gaza had reached unprecedented levels: in August, 12,800 children—one in five—were acutely malnourished, surpassing the previous month’s record. Aid organizations have urged Israel to stop blocking critical humanitarian assistance, though Israel denies using starvation as a weapon.
The roots of the current crisis trace back to October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants stormed into Israel, killing at least 1,139 people and taking around 250 hostages. The Israeli government’s response has been uncompromising. On Thursday, September 4, 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us,” as he signed an agreement to expand illegal settlements in the West Bank. Top ministers have also signaled support for building Israeli settlements in Gaza.
International legal bodies have weighed in with growing alarm. In an interim order last year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s acts in Gaza could amount to genocide—a charge Israel has consistently denied. Yet, on September 1, 2025, the world’s leading association of genocide scholars declared that Israel’s conduct met the legal definition of genocide as laid out in a United Nations convention. In November 2024, the UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defense chief Yoav Gallant, as well as a former Hamas commander, over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC has since faced sanctions from the United States, highlighting the deep international divisions over how to address the conflict.
Within this landscape of violence and impunity, journalists have paid a terrible price—not just as witnesses, but as victims. The deliberate targeting of media workers, the destruction of press infrastructure, and the tightening of censorship have made it harder than ever to report on the realities of life and death in Gaza. The struggle within the Media Freedom Coalition to issue a timely, unified response speaks volumes about the challenges of defending press freedom in a polarized world. Still, for those who gathered in Hong Kong and for the many who continue to demand accountability, the message remains clear: the world cannot afford to look away, and the stories from Gaza must not be silenced.
As the war grinds on and the toll on civilians and journalists continues to rise, the fight for press freedom—and for the truth itself—remains more urgent than ever.
