Since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, journalists and media across the region have faced a hostile environment that has made reporting on the war exceptionally challenging.  

In addition to documenting the growing tally of journalists killed and injured, CPJ’s research to date has found 26 incidents of journalists being targeted while carrying out their work in Israel and the two Palestinian territories, Gaza and the West Bank. These include 13 arrests, as well as assaults, threats, cyberattacks and censorship. (Editor’s note: These numbers as being updated as more information becomes available.)

Several journalists have also lost family members while covering the conflict. On October 25, Wael Al Dahdouh, Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief for Gaza, lost his wife, son, daughter, and grandson when an Israel airstrike hit the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of Gaza, according to a statement from Al-Jazeera and Politico.

In Gaza, the risks are acute. Israel has responded to Hamas’ October 7 attack on its territory with airstrikes and a ground assault into the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the militant Palestinian group.

CPJ is investigating reports that dozens of media offices in Gaza were damaged, leaving many journalists with no safe place to do their jobs, as they also contend with extensive power and communications outages, food and water shortages, and sometimes have to flee with their families.

In both Gaza and Israel, journalists reporting on the war have indicated they lack personal protective equipment (PPE). CPJ has received multiple requests from freelance journalists seeking PPE, but delivering this equipment to journalists in the region is difficult. CPJ currently recommends journalists consult CPJ’s PPE guide to source their own equipment.

“Journalists in Gaza are facing exponential risk,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “But their colleagues in the West Bank and Israel are also facing unprecedented threats, assaults, and intimidation to obstruct their vital work covering this conflict.”

Journalists from outlets including the BBC, Al-Jazeera, RT Arabic, and Al-Araby TV have reported obstructions to their reporting by the Israeli police, military, and others since the conflict began. Some of those incidents include:

Assaults

On October 16, journalist and columnist Israel Frey went into hiding after his home was attacked the previous day by a mob of far-right Israelis after he expressed solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, according to Haaretz and Middle East Eye.

On October 12, BBC Arabic reporters Muhannad Tutunji, Haitham Abudiab, and their team were dragged from their vehicle, searched, and held at gunpoint by police in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, despite their vehicle being marked “TV” in red tape and Tutunji and Abudiab presenting their press cards to police, the BBC reported. The broadcaster said Tutunji was struck on the neck and his phone was thrown on the ground while trying to film the incident. 

In response, the Israeli police issued a statement, quoted by the BBC, that its officers noticed “a suspicious vehicle and stopped it for inspection” and searched the vehicle “for fear of possession of weapons.”

On October 7, Sky News Arabia said that its team in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon was assaulted by Israeli police. The channel’s correspondent, Firas Lutfi, said the police pointed rifles at his head, forced him to undress, confiscated their phones, and escorted them out of the area, according to Sky News Arabia and the Cairo-based Alwafd news.

Arrests

On November 8, Israeli soldiers arrested journalist Mohamad Al-Atrash, a host for the program “People’s Discussions” at the local Palestinian Radio Alam, after raiding his house in Hebron, West Bank, according to the radio, the London-based news website The New Arab, and the Palestinian press freedom group MADA. Al-Atrash’s wife told Radio Alam that he was arrested and his phone confiscated in a dawn raid. 

On November 8, Israeli soldiers arrested reporter Amer Abu Arafa, a freelance reporter who works for the London-based Quds Press agency and Shehab news agency, after raiding his house in Hebron, West Bank, according to the Quds Press agency, the London-based news website The New Arab, the Palestinian press freedom group MADA, and the journalist’s brother Ammar Abu Arafa, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. Ammar Abu Arafa told CPJ that Israeli soldiers broke down their door, raided their house, assaulted his brother, and confiscated his phone. He noted that his brother has health issues and requires medication for paranasal sinuses. Amer Abu Arafa, 39, was previously arrested and placed under administrative detention in July 2022 without charges or trial for eight months, according to his news outlet, Ultra Palestine news website, and his brother, who told CPJ that Amer Abu Arafa was only freed four months ago.

On November 5, journalist Ameer Abo Iram, who works for the West Bank’s Ramallah-based news outlet Al-Ersal, was arrested during a raid by Israeli soldiers on his home in Birzeit, Ramallah, according to a video shared by Al-Ersal on Facebook, a statement by the Palestinian press freedom group MADA, and his wife Joman Abu Arafa, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. Abu Arafa told CPJ that her husband Abo Iram was previously arrested in October 2017 over his journalism, when he was a reporter for the Hamas affiliated Al-Aqsa channel. He was freed in late November 2017, according to the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes. 

On November 5, Somaya Jawabra, a 30-year-old freelance journalist from Nablus in the northern West Bank, was arrested. She was summoned, along with her husband, journalist Tariq Al-Sarkaji, for an investigation at the Israeli police station in the Ari’el camp. While her husband was later released, Jawabra, who is seven months pregnant, remains in detention. Her arrest followed about two weeks of incitement against her by settlers in a Telegram group, according to her husband and London-based news website The New Arab, RT Arabic, and the Palestinian press freedom group MADA. The New Arab said settlers accused Jawabra of having Hamas ties and of inciting against Israel.  

On October 29, 62-year-old journalist Nawaf Al-Amer of Sanad news agency was arrested in a raid by Israeli soldiers on his house in Kafr Qallil town of Nablus in the West Bank, according to his son, Ibrahim Al-Amer, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, and Al-Shabab local radio in Nablus. The Palestinian press freedom group MADA reported that Al-Amer was arrested at 4:00 a.m. on October 29, after his house was searched and his phone was confiscated. MADA also reported that Al-Amer suffers from health issues, including diabetes, and needs medical care, which was confirmed to CPJ by his son, Ibrahim Al-Amer. Al-Amer was previously arrested in 2011, when he was working as a programs director at the Hamas-affiliated Al-Quds TV channel, and spent 13 months in administrative detention, before he was freed in 2012, according to the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes and MADA. Al-Quds, which airs from Lebanon, was banned by Israel in 2018, CPJ documented.

On October 28, journalist Mohamed Bader of al-Hadath newspaper in the city of Ramallah, West Bank, gave himself up to the IDF for detention, his wife Soujoud Al-Assi and the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Rola Sarhan told CPJ. Al-Assi, also a journalist with Al-Hadath, told CPJ that she was arrested earlier that day to pressure her husband to surrender but she was later freed. On October 23, Israeli forces arrested Bader’s father and two brothers for the same reason, according to the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes and Al-Assi. The IDF had previously detained Bader from April until August, according to the London-based news website The New Arab and the Palestinian news website Amad. 

On October 26, Lama Khater, a freelance writer with Middle East Monitor and the Palestinian news website Felesteen and a political activist, was arrested by the IDF in the city of Hebron, West Bank, her husband Hazem Fakhoury told CPJ, and Al-Jazeera and the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes reported. Fakhoury said he did not know the reason for his wife’s arrest but that her lawyer had told him that Khater would be transferred to administrative detention—incarceration without charge, alleging that a person plans to commit an offense. Khater was previously arrested in 2018 and detained for more than a year over her critical reporting, according to the Palestine Information Center and the Middle East Monitor. On November 8, Khater’s husband told CPJ via messaging app that soldiers in her cell threatened her with rape and burning of her children. Her lawyer, Hassan Abbadi, who visited her in prison, also wrote about these details on his Facebook page, which was also reported by Al-Jazeera. The lawyer told CPJ via phone call that Khater was strip searched, and threatened to be “deported to Gaza.”

On October 18, two Palestinian journalists Alaa Rimaway and Imad Abu Awad were arrested by the IDF, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and the London-based news website The New Arab.

On October 16, four Palestinian journalists—Mustafa Al-Khawaja, Sabri Jabr, Abdel Nasser Al-Laham, and Muath Amarna—were arrested in the West Bank by the IDF, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and the London-based news website The New Arab. CPJ spoke with the families of four of the six journalists who confirmed the arrests and said they believed their relatives had been arrested because of their social media commentary on the conflict.

On October 29, Amarna was transferred to administrative detention—incarceration without charge, alleging that a person plans to commit an offense—for six months, the Palestinian news agency Wattan and the Palestinian press freedom group MADA reported. In a statement, Amarna’s family said that the journalist needed medical care as he was diabetic and missing an eye but the IDF had refused him to take him to hospital and denied him access to a lawyer.

Threats

On November 5, a team of journalists from the German public broadcaster ARD, including ARD correspondent Jan-Christoph Kitzler, accompanied by a Palestinian and a German network employee, were returning from reporting on violence by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. They were stopped by Israeli soldiers south of the Palestinian city of Hebron. The soldiers threatened the journalists with their weapons, and even questioned whether they were Jewish, according to the German television news service Tagesschau and Haaretz. One team member was also called a traitor, according to the same sources. Kitzler posted a photo on the social media platform X, showing one of the soldiers aiming a gun towards him. Kitzler attributed the soldiers’ aggression to the team reporting on increasing settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, writing in his post that “it’s noteworthy that many of the soldiers in that area are settlers themselves, creating an environment where journalists are generally unwelcome.”

Christian Limpert, the head of the ARD Tel Aviv studio, also called the incident as an attempt to obstruct ARD and other international media from reporting in the West Bank, according to Tagesschau and Haaretz.

After more than an hour, the situation eased when the IDF’s Foreign Desk, responsible for foreign correspondents, mediated by telephone. Haaretz reported that the IDF apologized and stated its commitment to ensuring freedom of the press in the West Bank. Limpert reported that days before this incident, soldiers detained an ARD cameraman and his soundman for two hours from reporting on settler violence near Qawawis in South Hebron. During that incident, their phones and camera were temporarily confiscated, according to Haaretz and the Foreign Press Association in Israel (FPA)’s statement.

On October 30, Al-Jazeera’s Gaza Strip correspondent Youmna El-Sayed told the broadcaster that her husband received a threatening phone call from a private number from a man who identified himself as a member of the IDF and told the family “to leave or die,” according to the advocacy group Women In Journalism and CNN Arabic. El-Sayed told Al-Jazeera English that she felt it was too risky to drive on any road in Gaza, especially as two cars had been shelled by a tank earlier in the day and that the previous time her family had tried to flee Gaza City, they had been forced to turn back because of Israel’s bombardment of southern Gaza.

On October 15, RT Arabic correspondent Dalia Nammari and her crew, who held Israeli press cards, were stopped by Israeli police at the border for identity checks, according to RT Arabic and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate. One officer threatened Dalia with his weapon and they warned the crew not to return to the location or else they risked arrest, those sources said.

On October 15, a video posted by Al-Araby TV depicted an Israeli police officer shouting and swearing at their correspondent while he was reporting live from Ashdod in southern Israel. The journalist said on air that the officer was armed.

On October 14, Al-Jazeera shared footage from an area in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip, known as the Gaza envelope, showing four IDF soldiers ordering Al-Jazeera journalists to stop filming and leave the area immediately. The incident was also covered by Arabia News 24.

CPJ’s emails requesting comment on these incidents from the IDF spokesperson for North America and the Israeli police did not receive any replies.

Cyberattacks

On November 3, Al-Mamlaka TV in Jordan experienced cyberattacks on its website, according to a statement by the channel and the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes. The channel said on X, formerly Twitter, that this attack was related to its coverage of the war in Gaza.

On October 31, Al-Jazeera released a statement confirming that its websites and servers were targeted in a cyberattack, attributed to its coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. Al-Jazeera disclosed that certain attackers’ IP addresses were linked to a party actively participating in the ongoing conflict, while other IPs made efforts to mask their true origins, according to Al-Jazeera and the Lebanese news website Al-Modon.

On October 18,  the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, Wafa, experienced a cyberattack that disrupted its news website, according to Wafa and the Amman-based news outlet Roya News. “This attack is part of a broader effort to suppress Palestinian media and silence platforms of truth,” Wafa said. CPJ was unable to determine who carried out the attack.

On October 9, The Jerusalem Post reported that its website was down due to a series of cyberattacks the previous day. The group Anonymous Sudan claimed responsibility for these attacks on Telegram, Axios and Time magazine reported.

Censorship

On October 30, Rolling Stone magazine announced that the Israeli government denied a press credential to its journalist Jesse Rosenfeld, who has covered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration critically.  “Rolling Stone is not a news organization and we are not dealing with this gentleman, thank you,” Ron Paz, Israel’s director of foreign press, told Rolling Stone on Monday, according to Rolling Stone and The Wrap entertainment website.

On October 29, Israeli authorities shut down Dream radio station, which is based in Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, on the grounds that it was disrupting the movement of their aircraft, according to the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency Wafa, Palestinian news agency Maan, and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate. The director of the station Talab Al-Jaabari told CPJ that “the head of the Israeli intelligence called me and threatened me with confiscation of equipment. There was no official order.” Dream was previously closed by the IDF in 2015 and 2022. 

On October 16, Israel proposed new emergency regulations that would allow it to halt media broadcasts that harm “national morale.” Officials have threatened to close Al-Jazeera’s local offices under this proposed rule, and to block the global news outlet from freely reporting on the war.

On October 16, the IDF ordered the West Bank-based J-Media agency to shut down, according to the Palestinian press freedom group MADA and the London-based news website The New Arab. In a statement, the IDF described the media outlet as “an illegal organization” and said its closure was necessary for “the sake of the security of the State of Israel and for the safety of the public and public order,” those sources said, adding that J-Media complied and ceased its operations immediately. J-Media provides footage and media services to broadcasters and covers Palestinian news, according to the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes and CPJ’s review of its website.

More on journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza conflict

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