Trigger Warning: contains graphic descriptions of violence, death, genocide

Decades of dealing with land dispossession and settler violence has led millions of Palestinians to resist Israeli efforts to erase their existence — whether ethnic, geographical, or cultural.

Their fight for freedom has turned into a severe struggle for survival. Israel has regularly resorted to war crimes such as arbitrarily attacking civilians, including women and children. This Zionist-led genocide in the Gaza Strip has already claimed more than 60,000 Palestinian lives since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

Among the lives lost are those of local reporters who brave through missiles, artillery shells and sniper bullets to document the atrocities committed by the Israeli military. More casualties are expected during what has been declared by media and human rights groups as the deadliest period for journalists in recorded history.

As we celebrate this year’s World Press Freedom Day, let us highlight the struggles faced by Palestinian journalists. During a global event when media workers collectively amplify calls to defend press freedom, we must recognize the plight of reporters in Gaza who literally risk life and limb to publish the truth.

Behind every statistic in this report is an actual person killed or harmed for simply existing and doing their job.

Among them are Palestinian journalists who have acted as frontliners, covering the horrors of war and genocide in their own homeland. Not only do they have to capture the cruelty of their people’s situation, but they also face the constant threat of indiscriminate shootings or bombings by Israeli forces.

In the case of Smart Media reporter Mohammad Sami Jarghoun, the 23-year-old was killed by Israeli fire while covering fighting near the Rafah crossing point in the south of the Gaza Strip in October 2023 during the onset of warfare.

Meanwhile, Alaa Hassan Al-Hams of the Sanad News Agency perished in February 2024, after two weeks of Israeli bombardment targeting civilian homes in Rafah. In December 2024, Al-Hams already lost 11 members of her family in an Israeli airstrike that also left her with a spinal injury.

Targeted killings were also enacted to silence journalists permanently.

In what became her last message to the world in November 2023, freelance journalist and podcast presenter Ayat Khadoura shared that “[Palestinians] had very big dreams, but unfortunately, today our dreams are that if we are killed, we are killed in one piece so they know who we are.”

She was murdered later that month, along with several family members, by an Israeli airstrike that targeted her home in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. Her relatives could not bury Khadoura because her body was blown to pieces, according to her sister in a Washington Post report.

The circumstances surrounding the murder of Khadoura were not isolated, as Israeli occupation forces have been shown to deliberately kill journalists.

On July 31, 2024, Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Ismail Al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi were killed by an Israeli drone attack while in their car that had clear signs to identify them as members of the press. Both men, who were also wearing media vests, were slain in the Al-Shati refugee camp near Gaza City after reporting on the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

A few months earlier, Al-Ghoul was detained and beaten for 12 hours during an Israeli raid on Al-Shifa hospital.

Al-Ghoul’s colleague Hossam Shabat was executed in the same manner nearly a year later. The killing of the Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent in March was later confirmed by the Israel Defense Forces, who listed Shabat as a Hamas sniper who carried out Israeli soldiers and citizens. No evidence was presented to support this claim.

Reporters without Borders condemned the murder and cover-up, calling it an “all-too-familiar pattern [that] fuels the unprecedented massacre of journalists happening in Gaza.”

This slaughter of truth-tellers does not spare even the youngest reporters from the bloodshed. Freelance journalist Hassan Hamad was only a teenager when he was killed in his own home in the Jabalia refugee camp in October 2024. The 19-year-old Hamad was reportedly injured in the leg but continued documenting the assaults in the area. His body was later found in pieces.

More recently, Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna was killed just two weeks ago, April 16, during a drone strike on her home. Along with nine family members, the 22-year-old perished just a day after it was announced that a documentary on her experiences would premiere in a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival this May.

These journalists were well-known for documenting the devastation caused by Israeli bombings, as well as the impact of siege conditions and resource shortages on Gaza citizens.

The numbers speak for themselves: being a Palestinian reporter has become a death sentence.

In Gaza, the killings of media practitioners have become so commonplace that an unofficial ritual has already been developed for funerals of fallen journalists — the placement of blue vests and helmets labeled as “PRESS” on their corpses.

Palestine TV correspondent Salman Al-Bashir arguably best described the situation after learning of his colleague’s death while live on air in November 2023: “No international security at all, no immunity or anything at all for these shields and helmets. They are merely slogans… they don’t protect any journalist at all. We are victims, directly on live television. We are martyred victims in a matter of time, we wait our turn, one after the other.”

“No story is worth dying for,” as said by generations of reporters all over the world.

Yet, for Palestinian journalists, whose lives have been endangered by genocidal forces, they are left with no choice but to report the truth. The 23-year-old Hossam Shabat knew this fact, choosing to document the evils of the Israeli invasion until the very moment he was martyred.

“By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest—something I haven’t known in the past 18 months,” Shabat said in his farewell message.

“I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause. I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honor of my life to die defending it and serving its people,” he added.

This #WorldPressFreedomDay, as we commemorate the lives of Shabat and his fellow journalists, we must echo their people’s calls to #FreePalestine in order to end this genocide once and for all.