The 189 Palestinian journalists killed in the war in Gaza, Reuters photojournalist resigned

Since the war began in Gaza, 189 Palestinian journalists have been killed, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. They include men and women, freelancers and staffers, veterans with years in the field and young reporters on some of their first assignments. Some were killed with their families at home, others were in vehicles marked “PRESS,” or in tents near hospitals, or out covering the violence. Many endured the same conditions as those they covered — hunger, displacement, and grief.

— Mariam Dagga, 33. A visual journalist and a 33-year-old mother, she was known for human-centered reporting from southern Gaza, including at Nasser Hospital, where she was killed in an Israeli strike in August 2025. During the war, she worked for The Associated Press and Independent Arabia. The strike that killed her also claimed the lives of rescuers and four other journalists.

— Anas Al-Sharif, 28. The father of two was killed in an Israeli strike on a tent outside Shifa hospital in August 2025, days after he wept on air while reporting on starvation deaths in Gaza. The strike — which also killed five other journalists — prompted an outpouring of condemnation from press freedom groups and foreign officials.

— Hamza Dahdouh, 27. The son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza City bureau chief, he was killed in a January 2024 drone strike after leaving a reporting assignment at the site of an earlier strike in southern Gaza. He was the fifth member of his family to be killed.

— Ayat Khadoura, 27. The Al Quds University graduate shed light on the hardships families faced in the first weeks of the war. She became known for reporting on bombs striking her northern Gaza neighborhood, including one video in which she said Israeli forces had ordered residents to evacuate moments before a strike hit her home and killed her in November 2023.

— Hossam Shabat, 23. A freelancer from northern Gaza, he was killed while reporting for Al Jazeera in March 2025. Before the war, he told a Beirut-based advocacy group he hoped to start a media company or work in his family’s restaurants.

— Fatima Hassouna, 25. The photojournalist was killed in an April 2025 Israeli airstrike a day after a documentary about her efforts to film daily life amid war in Gaza was accepted at a Cannes Film Festival program promoting independent films.

Israel has accused some of the journalists killed of involvement with militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad — charges that journalists and their outlets have dismissed as baseless. Israel’s military did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment about the CPJ data.

Figures and methodologies may differ among groups that track journalist deaths. CPJ said it “independently investigates and verifies the circumstances behind each death,” including to verify journalists’ lack of involvement in militant activities.

Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink has resigned after eight years with Reuters, criticizing the news agency’s stance on Gaza as a "betrayal of journalists" and accusing it of "justifying and enabling" the killing of 245 journalists in the Palestinian enclave.

“At this point it's become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza,” Zink said Tuesday through the US social media company X.

Zink said she worked as a Reuters stringer for eight years, with her photos published by many outlets, including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and others worldwide.

She criticized Reuters’ reporting after the killing of Anas Al-Sharif and an Al Jazeera crew in Gaza, accusing the agency of amplifying Israel’s “entirely baseless claim” that Al-Sharif was a Hamas operative, which was “one of countless lies that media outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified,” she said.

“When Israel murdered Anas Al-Sharif, together with the entire Al Jazeera crew in Gaza City on August 10, Reuters chose to publish Israel’s entirely baseless claim that Al-Sharif was a Hamas operative — one of countless lies that media outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified,” Zink wrote.

“I have valued the work that I brought to Reuters over the past eight years, but at this point I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief,” Zink said.

Zink also emphasized that the agency’s willingness to “perpetuate Israel's propaganda” has not spared their own reporters from Israel's genocide.

“I don’t know what it means to begin to honour the courage and sacrifice of journalists in Gaza, the bravest and best to ever live, but going forward I will direct whatever contributions I have to offer with that front of mind,” Zink highlighted, reflecting on the courage of Gaza’s journalists.

“I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more,” she added.

Referring to the killing of six more journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hossam Al-Masri, in Israel's Monday attack on the Nasser hospital in Gaza, Zink said: “It was what's known as a "double tap" strike, in which Israel bombs a civilian target like a school or hospital; waits for medics, rescue teams, and journalists to arrive; and then strikes again.”

Zink underlined that Western media is directly culpable for creating the conditions for these events, quoting Jeremy Scahill, who said major outlets—from the New York Times to Reuters—have served as “a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda,” sanitizing war crimes, dehumanizing victims, and abandoning both their colleagues and their commitment to true and ethical reporting.

She said Western media outlets, by "repeating Israel's genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility" and abandoning basic journalistic responsibility, have enabled the killing of more journalists in Gaza in two years than in major global conflicts combined, while also contributing to the suffering of the population.

The new fatalities among the media personnel in Gaza brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023 to 246.

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