Last year was the deadliest for journalists in more than three decades, with the majority killed in the Middle East, according to a report released Wednesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
At least 124 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024, the most recorded since the CPJ began collecting data three decades ago.
Nearly 70% of those deaths were at the hands of the Israeli military in Gaza and Lebanon, the report said, with 82 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces denied targeting media workers, saying it “takes all operationally feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians including journalists.”
Last year’s death toll exceeded the previous record in 2007, when 113 journalists were killed, almost half of them amid the US-led war in Iraq.
“The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists in conflict zones, but it is far from the only place journalists are in danger,” the committee’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement.
It accused Israel of being “slow and not transparent” in its inquiries into soldiers’ killings of journalists, of shifting blame to the victims and ignoring its duty to hold its military to account.
After Gaza and Lebanon, the report identified Sudan and Pakistan as the deadliest places for journalists, with six media workers killed in each last year. Mexico, Syria, Myanmar, Iraq and Haiti also had multiple killings of journalists in 2024.
“The number of conflicts globally – whether political, criminal, or military in nature – has doubled in the past five years, and this is reflected in the high number of deaths of journalists in nations such as Sudan, Pakistan, and Myanmar,” the CPJ said, citing data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) monitoring initiative.
Targeted killings on the rise
The CPJ report said at least 24 journalists worldwide had been killed deliberately because of their work over the past year, describing this as “an alarming rise in the number of targeted killings.”
Among them was Ismail Al-Ghoul, a 27-year-old Palestinian journalist, who was killed alongside his cameraman, Rami Al-Rifi, in an Israeli airstrike on Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza last July, sparking condemnation from advocacy groups.
In the immediate aftermath of Al-Ghoul’s killing, his employer, Al Jazeera, denied what it called “baseless allegations made by the Israeli occupation forces in an attempt to justify its deliberate killing of our colleague, journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul, and his companion, cameraman Rami Al-Rifi.”
The IDF has rarely provided specific answers about the circumstances that led to the killing of journalists. Instead, the Israeli military has issued vague statements that reiterate their forces do not intentionally target journalists or that the matter is under investigation.
Trapped in the strip alongside their fellow Gaza residents, Palestinian reporters have been the eyes and ears of those suffering under the shadow of war. And with foreign media largely unable to enter, it is their photos, footage and reporting, often gathered at great personal risk, that have shown the world what is happening.
The committee said 10 journalists were deliberately killed by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon. The 14 other journalists whose deaths it determined were deliberate were from Haiti, Mexico, Pakistan, Myanmar, Mozambique, India, Iraq, and Sudan.
Failures to protect press
The report highlighted the ongoing failures to protect journalists and media workers, especially freelancers, in countries with consistently high rates of killings.
It cited the killing of a veteran journalist, Alejandro Martínez Noguez, who was shot last August in Mexico while under police protection as an example of the “persistent flaws” in the country’s mechanisms meant to protect journalists.
“The death tolls in Mexico, Pakistan, India, and Iraq reinforced the extreme dangers journalists face in these nations, which have experienced repeated killings over multiple decades despite numerous efforts in some of these countries, including at the national level, to address this,” the report said.
Freelancers, it said, were killed at an “unprecedented rate” last year. A total of 43 were killed, more than a third of all media worker deaths, the majority of which were Palestinians in Gaza.
“The typical freelancer frequently works alone, without staffers’ access to protective equipment, security guards, insurance for medical treatment, or benefits that would help surviving family members,” the report said.
It called on governments, international institutions and media organizations to ensure accountability for threats and attacks against journalists and to provide media workers with the necessary support to do their work.
“Every journalist killed is the loss of a truth-teller. Those who chronicle our reality and hold power to account deserve justice. We will not stop seeking it,” the committee said in a post on X.