A report by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs’ Costs of War project estimates that Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 232 journalists. This figure must necessarily be an estimate, for various reasons:

• Dead journalists may still lie under the rubble of bombed buildings.
• Some off-duty Palestinian journalists, like tens of thousands of fellow Palestinian citizens, may have been killed when the houses they were in were bombed by the Israeli military.

The report quotes Reporters Without Borders, who documented 35 cases where journalists were probably killed because of their reporting by the end of 2024.

The figure of 232 journalists killed makes this death toll higher than World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia, and the US war on Afghanistan – combined.

This is despite the fact that the Israel War on Gaza has killed far fewer people than those other wars (again, necessarily estimates): WWI (15 – 22 million), WWII (70 – 85 million), Vietnam (1.35 million), Yugoslavia (140,000), Afghanistan (46,000), Gaza (50,000, ongoing).

A well-known saying is “The first casualty of war is truth.” The saying is documented from 1915 (ie World War I), but variations on the same basic theme have been recorded from much earlier. In relation to World War I, Australian historian and journalist Philip Knightley wrote in his book The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker, “More deliberate lies were told than in any other period of history, and the whole apparatus of the state went into action to suppress the truth.”

One journalist killed by Israel in southern Gaza was Al-Jazeera reporter Hamza Dahdouh. The vehicle he was in was struck by an Israeli missile. He was the fifth immediate family member of Wael Dahdouh, Al-Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, to be killed by Israeli attacks. Israel used the often-repeated claim – without evidence – that he was a Hamas operative.

The Watson Institute project report concluded, “Across the globe, the economics of the industry, the violence of war, and coordinated censorship campaigns are turning more conflict zones into news graveyards, with Gaza being the most extreme example.”