Israel is not deliberately killing journalists in Gaza. But it does bear responsibility for their deaths
More than 200 Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been killed by the Israeli military
A journalist holds the blood-covered camera belonging to Palestinian photojournalist Mariam Dagga, a journalist who freelanced for AP who was killed in an Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Gaza, Aug. 25. Photo by Getty Images
Columnist Dan Perry August 27, 2025
The Israeli shelling of Gaza’s Nasser Hospital this week, killing five journalists along with civilians and health workers, has reopened a terrible debate. With nearly two hundred journalists killed since the war began, Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for the press in recorded history, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. These victims risked their lives to bring us the story when international journalists have been barred from the Strip, many of them appearing on our screens in our safe havens far away.
Critics say Israel has embarked on a systematic campaign to silence witnesses – and, very meaningfully, this includes the CPJ, a serious organization that is not prone to hyperbole. In its report this month, the organization wrote soberly that “Israel is engaging in the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that CPJ has ever documented.”
This and other statements leave little doubt about the prevailing perception: that Israel is at war not just with Hamas, but with the truth. The concerns are not unwarranted, and the grief is real.
And yet — having lived these issues for decades, I must insist that the reality is more complicated, and perhaps more tragic, than the caricature. Its position, like the wider story, is more nuanced and complex — but still not necessarily defensible.
I have sadly had some experience with journalist deaths in the region. Nazeh Darwazeh, a Palestinian cameraman for the Associated Press, was killed in Nablus during the Second Intifada in 2003. He was hit in the head by a ricocheted bullet fired by an Israeli soldier, who had left his armored vehicle after it got stuck in a narrow alleyway and was besieged by a mob.
As the AP bureau chief in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, I went to visit his family to console them. His young son clung to his father’s picture on the wall, refusing to leave its side. The mother blamed Ariel Sharon. Everyone understood, though, that it had been an accident. That encounter will stay with me forever.
In August 2014, during the late stages of another Gaza war, there was a terrible explosion in northern Gaza. It killed our Italian video journalist Simone Camilli, along with translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash and four members of a Hamas bomb squad, who were unwisely fiddling with unexploded Israeli ordnance. Another colleague, AP photographer Hatem Moussa, was gravely injured in the blast and lost his leg.
Both of these incidents were tragic accidents, but neither was a case of Israel assassinating anyone. In the current environment, I suspect that nuance — which, in these incidents, is actually a huge distinction — might be lost.
Israel, unlike Vladimir Putin’s Russia, does not assassinate journalists for being journalists. From years of conversations with soldiers and commanders, from my own experience, and from talking to soldiers active in the current war, I can sketch four scenarios that account for most of these deaths.
The first is partial indifference: an operation is underway, a location is targeted and the presence of media nearby does not slow the trigger finger as much as it should. The second is a rogue soldier who disregards rules or lets anger dictate action. The third is the tragic misidentification of a journalist believed to be a Hamas operative, whether because Hamas embeds itself among civilians, or because the soldier has been led to believe the camera and press jacket is a disguise.
The fourth, and perhaps most troubling, is when Israel acknowledges someone’s journalistic role but decides it is irrelevant if that person is deemed targetable for other reasons. This seems to have been the case with Anas al-Sharif, the Al Jazeera journalist killed after months of threats and surveillance. The “proof” Israel provided of Hamas ties was threadbare, referred to the past and failed to convince. Officials seemed unaware or indifferent to how terrible it looks to openly target a reporter, especially one so prominent on air.
In theory, all four scenarios are condemnable. But they differ from the notion of a deliberate, systematic policy of targeting and exterminating journalists. Israel, for all its flaws, is still a state with a rule of law. The prime minister is on trial, citizens are free to protest and the military is not immune from scrutiny. That does not absolve Israel of responsibility nor soften the horror of the numbers — but it should temper the conclusion.
International journalists have not been able to enter Gaza independently since the war began, which adds another important layer of complexity. The reporting we see is from Palestinians on the ground, many working for international media at immense risk. Some are extraordinary professionals. I know this because I hired and worked with them.
But Gaza is not a free environment. Hamas controls public space and imposes its will. Journalists cannot always speak freely. Some may feel pressure to hold back on critical coverage that Hamas may not appreciate. Israel claims that some are propagandists or even operatives. I do not dismiss this out of hand, though I know it is sometimes a self-serving claim. The situation is messy and the truth is elusive.
In an appearance on CBC this week, I explained that Israel is not targeting journalists in order to prevent the truth from coming out, but “what has developed, however, is a certain callousness — a light trigger finger born of despair after so much time fighting Hamas, which refuses to surrender.”
The responsibility for the length of this war, the longest in Israel’s history, lies largely at the feet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I am a harsh critic of Netanyahu and of his conduct of this war. I believe he is guided less by strategy than by his own political survival, which leads him toward cynical and destructive decisions. In this sense, he edges closer to the caricature his critics paint.
But Israel as a whole is not a cartoon villain. It is a country confronting an enemy that hides among civilians, glorifies martyrdom, and educates its youth for jihad. Hamas has long sought to turn the suffering of Palestinians into a weapon. That does not absolve Israel of its choices, but it explains some of the context. The reality is murkier than Israel’s haters comprehend, as tragedy often is.
