Israel Must Let the Media Into Gaza

Opinion|Israel’s Gaza Media Ban Is Indefensible

All wars are dangerous to cover, but Gaza holds a place of its own among modern conflicts for the peril faced by journalists. Some 200 journalists have been among the estimated 63,000 people killed since the Gaza war began — an overwhelming majority killed by the Israeli military. Those deaths have helped make the past two years the deadliest period for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization, started keeping records in 1992.

The deaths are one more layer of the agonizing human tragedy in Gaza. Families and neighborhoods have been destroyed, and many brave journalists have lost their lives while attempting to help the world understand the war. Nearly all of these journalists have been Palestinian because Israel has barred outside members of the media from entering Gaza.

That ban on outside media is both outrageous and self-defeating. Israel’s leaders and defenders often argue that they are held to a different standard during wartime from other nations, and they are sometimes correct about that. But the refusal to allow international journalists to cover the war on the ground is an example of the Israeli government failing to follow a standard that many other governments, especially democracies, follow. The United States allowed reporters to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ukraine allows journalists in to cover its war with Russia.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government seem to believe that keeping foreign journalists out of Gaza advances their narrative. In Israel it may help serve that purpose by giving some Israelis an excuse to dismiss coverage of Gazan suffering as Palestinian propaganda. Globally, though, the policy has spectacularly failed: Thanks to social media and the work of those brave Palestinian journalists, people can see the mass killing, severe hunger and wholesale destruction in Gaza, and it has prompted an outcry. Keeping out the international media indicates that Israel’s leaders are trying to conceal the war’s full horror. It evokes the failed attempts by American leaders to bury the truth during the Vietnam War.

The ban also seems to be contributing to the Israeli government’s callousness toward the journalists who are covering the war. Often, war-fighting governments take steps to reduce the risks to journalists covering the conflict. Yes, on-the-ground reporting remains dangerous, but military planners nonetheless take account of where journalists are operating and how they might be protected. Israel has failed in this regard. It seems likely that Israel would have tried harder if the journalists in question included more Americans and other nationalities. (The New York Times was among more than 100 news organizations to sign a letter in February 2024 calling on Israel to live up to international law and protect Palestinian journalists who continue to report, “despite grave personal risk.”)

An attack last week offered a terrible and telling example. Israel has sometimes used so-called double-tap strikes in Gaza, in which an initial strike is followed by another, with the purpose of maximizing damage to the enemy. Yet journalists and emergency medical personnel are often first to the scene. On Monday the Israeli military shelled Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, later saying that it had targeted what it thought was a Hamas surveillance camera. Moments after the first attack, a second occurred. In all, at least 20 Palestinians were killed, including five journalists from The Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye. Most of the casualties came from the second strike.