Killing the messengers: Journalists in

Ever since an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sniper’s green-tipped, armour-piercing bullet killed Shireen Abu Akleh on 11 May 2022, journalists are increasingly the victims of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.

- Marlan Padayachee

Abu Akleh, the renowned Al Jazeera correspondent, was shot while reporting on an IDF raid in Jenin. Forensic reconstructions confirmed sniper fire, yet accountability never came.

Two years on, the killing of journalists has become routine. On 7 October 2025, the world will mark two years since Hamas’s terrible storming of Israel — in which about 1200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage — ignited Israel’s most devastating military campaign against Palestinians. More than 63 000 people have been killed. Amid the staggering civilian toll lies a quieter, chilling pattern — the deliberate targeting of those documenting it.

Last week, the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) condemned the killing of five Palestinian journalists in Gaza: Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, Al Jazeera correspondents; cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Moamen Aliwa and assistant Mohammed Noufal.

“This is no tragic accident,” Sanef stated. “It is part of a blatant and premeditated assault on press freedom.”

Israel insists it targets Hamas operatives. Yet it rarely produces evidence. The United Nations reports that since October 2023, 242 Palestinian journalists have been killed.

“Journalists are the eyes and ears of the world,” Sanef's KwaZulu-Natal representative Judy Sandison noted. “Attacking them is an attack on truth itself. It has to stop.”