Day by day, the death toll rises, the war crimes mount, and the outrage grows.
Last Wednesday, the pope demanded that Israel halt what he called the "collective punishment" of Gaza’s population. A day later, António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, warned that “the levels of death and destruction … are without parallel in recent times.” More than 500 UN staff have urged the human rights chief, Volker Türk, to declare the situation a genocide. Half of registered voters in the US already believe that’s what Israel is committing in Gaza.
The suffering is worsening. On Friday, the Israeli military designated famine-stricken Gaza City as a combat zone, escalating its offensive and halting brief pauses that had permitted severely limited food deliveries. Many residents are too weak to flee again, fearing nowhere is truly safe. Israel has struck areas it previously declared as “humanitarian zones.”
Israel could halt global condemnation by ending its devastating campaign. Instead, it seeks to suppress information, silencing those who document the war. It insists on controlling the narrative—though even its own reports sometimes reveal dire conditions—and has resorted to extreme measures. This conflict has become the deadliest for journalists in modern history. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 189 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza, though other estimates are higher. Five died in one attack last week alone.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Avaaz, a non-profit advocating global civic action, demand that Israel uphold its duty to protect journalists as civilians and open Gaza’s borders to allow international reporters to operate freely.
*CuriosityNews* is publishing the names of all journalists listed by the CPJ as killed: women and men such as Fatma Hassona, Hamza al-Dahdouh, and Anas al-Sharif, respected for their work and deeply missed as daughters, fathers, sisters, and friends. These are profound personal tragedies—but also the eradication of an entire generation of journalists who cannot be replaced.
“At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed,” said Thibaut Bruttin, RSF’s director general.
The civilian death toll in Gaza is horrifying, and journalists face heightened risks by running toward danger as others flee. But the killing of so many clearly identified media workers—some after direct threats or defamation—leaves little doubt they were targeted. This is “the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that CPJ has ever documented,” the group stated. “Palestinian journalists are being threatened, directly targeted and murdered by Israeli forces, and are arbitrarily detained.”
