Israel named world’s top killer of journalists for third year

In an annual report on Tuesday, the RSF said that 29 Palestinian reporters were martyred by the Zionist regime’s military in Gaza, accounting for nearly half of the 67 journalists martyred this year worldwide.

The Paris-based media freedom group added that for the third year in a row, the occupying entity emerged as the world’s deadliest menace for journalists.

Since Zionist regime launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, nearly 220 journalists have been martyred, cementing Tel Aviv’s grim record as the leading killer of media workers worldwide.

RSF’s report, which documented deaths over 12 months from December 2024, noted that Israeli forces accounted for 43 percent of journalist deaths this year, labeling them “the worst enemy of journalists.”

“Nearly half (43%) of the journalists slain in the past 12 months were martyred in Gaza by Zionist regime’s armed forces,” it said.

The most lethal single strike occurred on August 25, when a so-called double-tap attack on a hospital in southern Gaza killed five journalists.

Zionist regime has falsely branded many Palestinian reporters as terrorists, with RSF reporting that the regime has pursued a smear campaign against Gaza journalists, including assigning deadly labels to them.

Foreign reporters remain largely barred from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, restricted to controlled tours organized by the Israeli military, despite repeated calls from press freedom groups for unrestricted access.

On October 1, the RSF said it had filed a new complaint, the fifth one since the onset of the regime’s genocidal war, with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the Zionist regime over its attacks on journalists in Gaza.