A RECORD NUMBER of journalists and media workers were killed last year, with Israel held responsible for two-thirds of the deaths.

This is the second consecutive year-on-year record for press deaths.

The figures were compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which is an independent, non-profit organisation that promotes press freedom worldwide.

Some 129 journalists and media workers were killed last year and the majority of the deceased were Palestinians killed by Israel – three of these killings by Israel occurred after the October 2025 ceasefire.

The year previous, in 2024, 124 journalists and media workers were killed and Israel was responsible for nearly two-thirds of these deaths.

The CPJ has said that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has committed more targeted killings of journalists than any other government’s military since the CPJ began documenting journalists’ deaths in 1992.

Last year, the CPJ said it documented 47 cases of journalists being murdered because of their work, with Israel responsible in 81% of these cases.

However, the CPJ said the total number of targeted killings “may be far higher”.

“With much contemporaneous evidence now destroyed, the true number of Palestinian journalists in Gaza who were deliberately targeted by Israel may never be known,” said the CPJ.

The CPJ has called on international authorities to ensure that all cases of targeted killings of the press are “independently and impartially investigated as war crimes”.

It also warned that Israel has a “long-standing unwillingness to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by its military”.

The CPJ defines the deliberate targeting of a journalist for their work as “murder”.

It adds that this “should not be taken to suggest that any of the other killings recorded are considered lawful, but rather that CPJ has not been able to determine whether that individual was killed specifically because of their journalism”.

The CPJ said it has documented instances in which journalists targeted by Israel in Gaza were known to have reported at length on apparent Israeli war crimes, such as starvation or attacks on hospitals.

Among the journalists targeted was Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old Palestinian correspondent for Al Jazeera and US-based Drop Site News.

Sticker depicting Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat who was killed by an Israeli airstrike Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

He was killed on 24 March 2025 in an Israeli strike on his car near a hospital in northern Gaza.

Shabat was going to hospital when he was blown up by an Israeli drone that directly targeted him.

He was one of the most well-known journalists who remained in northern Gaza to report on Israel’s assault on the besieged territory, and Israel accused Shabat of being a Hamas sniper without providing credible evidence.

The CPJ said that Israel has “repeatedly killed journalists whom it subsequently – and in some cases preemptively – alleged were militants, without providing credible evidence to support its claims”.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), the professional body representing journalists in Palestine, said that the Israeli military had killed more than 700 family members of journalists since October 2023.

“The journalist is no longer the sole target,” said the PJS.

“The family has been transformed into a tool of pressure and collective punishment, violating the core principles of international humanitarian law.”

Labour’s spokesperson on foreign affairs, Duncan Smith, remarked that the findings” highlights the devastating ways in which Israel has acted with impunity in Gaza”.

“We are living through a time when we have turned to journalists to lay bbarethe reality of the genocide in Gaza,” said Smith.

“That they face such relentless targeting in the pursuit of the truth is harrowing.

“Journalists have a right to be protected from attack, yet Israel believes the rules do not apply to them. We stand with all media workers in the face of such attacks.”

Elsewhere, four journalists in Ukraine were killed by Russian military drones last year and nine journalists were killed in Sudan, five of whom were killed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

But the CPJ noted that journalists are not only in danger when reporting on wars.

Journalists were also killed in Bangladesh, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

In Mexico, at least six journalists were killed last year, and all six deaths are unsolved, while in the Philippines, three journalists were shot dead, with only one case leading to an arrest.