RAMALLAH, August 25, 2025 (WAFA) – The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for the flagrant war crimes committed daily against Palestinian journalists. Israel treats the Palestinian press as a strategic threat that must be eliminated, in a failed attempt to obscure the truth and silence witnesses.
A press report issued by the Syndicate's Freedoms Committee on Monday stated that from October 7, 2023, until the end of July, the Syndicate documented the arrest of 147 journalists, including approximately 20 female journalists who were subjected to physical and psychological assault and torture.
It also documented the killing of 240 journalists in the Gaza Strip since the start of the aggression, some of whom were killed along with their families in deliberate attacks on their homes.
The report added that dozens of journalists were placed under administrative detention without indictment or trial, facing systematic practices that include beatings, denial of medical treatment, solitary confinement, and confiscation of journalistic equipment.
It also pointed out that the file of imprisoned journalists reveals the oppressive nature of the occupation, as most journalists are held in administrative detention without charge, in clear violation of international humanitarian law. Some have been forcibly disappeared for months and are subjected to harsh detention conditions, including denial of visits, psychological and physical torture, and deliberate medical neglect.
The Journalists Syndicate emphasized that what is happening constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity that requires Israel to be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court. It also constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Security Council Resolution 2222, and a systematic policy to conceal evidence of crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.
It called for the immediate release of all detained journalists, an end to administrative detention, the formation of an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate the occupation's crimes against the Palestinian media, the imposition of international sanctions on the leaders, politicians, and officers responsible for these crimes, and the provision of urgent international protection for journalists working in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The head of the Syndicate's Freedoms Committee, Muhammad al-Lahham, said that the international community's continued silence amounts to complicity with the occupation in its crime against the Palestinian press.
He continued: "These policies confirm that the occupation is not targeting individuals as much as it is seeking to criminalize Palestinian journalistic work as a whole, by demonizing journalists and labeling them as "incitement," in an attempt to convince the world that the camera is more dangerous than the rifle and that the Palestinian press is a strategic threat that must be eliminated by all means, including arrest and assassination."
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