When journalism becomes a weapon of terrorism

A person does not automatically become a civilian just because he or she carries a camera, works for a news organization or wears a press vest.

By Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute

For nearly three years, the international media has repeatedly presented the deaths of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip as evidence that Israel is deliberately targeting journalists in an effort to prevent the world from seeing what is happening there.

This accusation deserves serious investigation.

So does another question that has received considerably less attention: How many of those described as “journalists” were also members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)?

The question has become particularly urgent after the release by the Israel Defense Forces of a database identifying 170 Palestinians killed during the war whom the IDF says were also members of Hamas, PIJ, or other terrorist organizations.

According to the IDF, the database contains military identification numbers, ranks, unit affiliations, photographs, and other information about the alleged journalists.

The IDF also found that a number of those identified had participated in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel.

These figures do not establish that every Palestinian journalist in the Gaza Strip is or was a terrorist.

There are Palestinian journalists who have genuinely worked as journalists; these legitimate reporters covering a war deserve praise, as well as the protections afforded to journalists under international law.

Nevertheless, 170 fake journalists cannot simply be dismissed.

There is an even more important reason why the allegations deserve scrutiny.

In a number of instances, the evidence of complicity in terrorism did not originate with Israel. It came from Hamas and PIJ themselves.

Investigations have found occurrences in which terrorist organizations publicly identified people who had been described internationally as journalists as members of their military wings.

Ahmed Abu Eisha, for instance, had been identified as a journalist for Palestine Today.

After his death, PIJ’s military wing identified him as a commander and operative in its Central Information Unit.

Another, Mohammed Nasser Abu Huwaidi, had been described as a journalist for the newspaper Al-Istiqlal.

PIJ later identified him as having served in its “military media unit.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), after determining that he had participated in combat, removed him from its database.

Yaqoub Anan al-Bursh had been identified as a journalist and executive director of Namaa Radio.

He was also later named by Hamas’s military wing as a member of one of its battalions and a “military media commentator.”

Maysara Salah, associated with Quds News Network, was similarly authenticated by Hamas-affiliated media as a member of its military media apparatus who had fought in a Hamas battalion.

These cases are significant because they cannot just be shrugged off as an Israeli attempt to discredit Palestinian journalists.

The terrorist organizations themselves claimed those individuals as members.

This issue has even affected organizations that have spent years documenting the deaths of journalists in the Gaza Strip.

CPJ has acknowledged that combatants should not be classified as journalists.

After reviewing evidence concerning people killed in the Gaza Strip, CPJ removed even more names from its database after determining that some had been members of Hamas or PIJ and had participated in combat.

CPJ has condemned the “misrepresentation of combatants as journalists or media workers,” noting that such practices endanger genuine journalists—an important admission.

A person does not automatically become a civilian just because he or she carries a camera, works for a news organization or wears a press vest.

Journalists are protected as civilians as long as they do not directly participate in hostilities or terror attacks.

If someone works as a reporter but simultaneously serves as a sniper, commander, military intelligence officer, or member of a terrorist organization’s military apparatus, his or her second identity cannot be erased by calling him or her a journalist.

This raises uncomfortable questions about the coverage of the Gaza war.

According to the IDF database, the people identified as terrorist operatives were associated with a remarkably broad range of media organizations as well as individuals reportedly associated with international news organizations, including Reuters, AP, CNN, BBC, AFP, Le Monde, and Anadolu Agency, and Al-Jazeera.

This list does not prove that those international organizations knowingly employed terrorists.

Yet it does create an obvious journalistic obligation: Investigate.

Did these organizations know that some of their Gaza-based employees, freelancers, or contributors were members of Hamas or PIJ?

Did they conduct background checks? Did Hamas or PIJ influence their reporting?

Did the positions of these journalists within Hamas or PIJ give them access to information that was then presented to international audiences as independent journalism?

Most importantly, how many people whose deaths were cited as evidence of Israel’s alleged campaign against journalists were actually participating in the war?

Many foreign journalists and media outlets have relied heavily on Palestinian journalists and media workers inside the Gaza Strip for photographs, videos, eyewitness accounts, casualty information, and descriptions of Israeli military operations.

When the world’s media depend on local sources to tell the story of a war, those sources must be subjected to the same scrutiny as sources anywhere else.

Instead, too often, the word “journalist” has been treated as if it were synonymous with “neutral.” It is not. Add to that now the word for “pilot.”

Another disturbing dimension to this issue is that if Hamas or PIJ deliberately allowed members of their military organizations to work under journalistic identities, that would present more than a problem of inaccurate reporting.

It would be part of a broader information strategy in which the boundaries between fighter, propagandist, and journalist become deliberately blurred.

It would also, as CJP pointed out, put genuine Palestinian journalists at risk.

When combatants operate under journalistic cover, it damages the credibility of legitimate Palestinian reporters, causes Israeli forces to be suspicious of people carrying cameras or working for media organizations, and mistakenly kills or harms them.

The international media cannot demand that Israel be held accountable for every journalist killed in the Gaza Strip while at the same time refusing to investigate if any were members of the terrorist organizations fighting Israel.

The world has been told to trust Gaza’s “journalists.” The evidence now demands that the world start asking: journalists for whom?

What we have seen in the Gaza Strip over the past three years is “journalism Jihad” in the service of “holy war.”

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