Reporters Without Borders: 67 Journalists Killed Worldwide in 2025… Half of Them in Gaza

Reporters Without Borders announced that 2025 was among the deadliest years for journalists, with 67 killed worldwide, nearly half of them in the Gaza Strip by fire from the Israeli occupation army.

In its annual report released Tuesday, the organization stated that 79% of the victims were killed by gunfire from regular armies or armed groups, while organized crime gangs assassinated 16 journalists. It confirmed that most of those killed were deliberately targeted because of their journalistic work, not as a result of incidental circumstances.

The organization’s Director General, Thibaut Bruttin, pointed out that the escalation of targeting is due to “impunity,” adding that the inability of international institutions to enforce laws protecting journalists in conflict zones stems from the “decline in governmental courage.” He said journalists have been transformed from witnesses to events into “collateral victims, troublesome witnesses, bargaining chips, and even targets for liquidation.”

The report explained that the Gaza Strip was the deadliest place for journalists, accounting for about 43% of global victims in 2025, at a time when the occupation army has killed more than 220 journalists since October 2023, including 65 while performing their work.

Former president of the International Federation of Journalists, Philippe Leruth, described the targeting of journalists in Gaza as a “double crime against humanity and freedom of expression,” stressing that they are civilians who must be protected, and that Israel is attempting to prevent them from conveying what is happening on the ground through strict censorship.

In addition to killings, the organization reported that 20 Palestinian journalists remain imprisoned in Israeli jails, including 16 arrested over the past two years in Gaza and the West Bank. The organization noted that “Israel” ranks second globally—after Russia—in detaining foreign journalists.

Reporters Without Borders warned that the decline in journalist protection and the absence of accountability worldwide have made them “targets for liquidation, not merely victims of circumstance,” affirming: “Journalists do not die… they are killed.”

Since October 7, 2023, “Israel”—with American and European support—has carried out genocide in the Gaza Strip, encompassing killing, starvation, destruction, displacement, and imprisonment, ignoring international appeals and orders from the International Court of Justice to stop.

The genocide has left more than 241,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, in addition to over 11,000 missing persons, hundreds of thousands displaced, famine claiming the lives of many—mostly children—alongside total devastation and the erasure of most cities and areas of the Strip from the map.

Agencies