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Terrorists Aren’t Journalists
Israeli soldiers fire mortar shells, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, near Israel’s border with Gaza in southern Israel, Jan. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
The headlines blare: More than 70 journalists have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war. But those headlines are misleading, and used to demonize Israel.
As of January 5, 2024, according to information published by the Committee to Protect Journalists, 24 of those 70 Palestinians who died were affiliated with Hamas media outlets, two were affiliated with Hezbollah, and one with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. All of these groups are designated terrorist entities by the United States. While these individuals were likely not combatants, they would, nevertheless, seem to be supporting nefarious propagandist activity, not engaging in legitimate journalism.
Facts matter, and saying that 70 journalists are dead, without specifying that so many are affiliated with terror groups, or that others are Israeli journalists, completely distorts the story.
For example, the Committee to Protect Journalists casualty list includes more than 10 people affiliated with Al-Aqsa TV. In March of 2010, under US President Barack Obama, Al-Aqsa TV was designated “a television station financed and controlled by Hamas.” According to the US government, it is “a primary Hamas media outlet and airs programs and music videos designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood.”
The Treasury Department at the time further stated that it “will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself.”
The conflated deaths of Hamas propagandists with journalists is an attempt to assail Israel. The bias can be seen in a November 9 public letter signed by hundreds of editorialists and reporters, demanding “an explicit commitment from Israel to end the violence against journalists and other civilians.”
This letter jettisons any pretense of objectively, and reveals a clear anti-Israel antipathy, accusing the Jewish state of genocide, and the intentional targeting of journalists.
“We have not seen any evidence that Israel is intentionally targeting journalists” said US Department of State Spokesperson Mathew Miller on December 18; but the November 9 letter seemed to have attracted more attention than either his denial or the absence of factual support for the accusation.
Moreover, the letter from the press community rejects the casus belli for the Gaza invasion — the terrorist mutilation and massacre committed against civilians by Hamas on October 7. Hamas’ suicidal stranglehold of Gaza civilians and holding of Israeli hostages is also ignored.
Given this obvious tendentiousness, it is easy to see why reporters consider Hamas propagandists as benign or innocent victims in the Gaza war.
By contrast, in the United States war against Al-Qaeda, there was no mainstream, editorial sentiment that Adam Gadahn, the American who traveled to the Afghanistan/Pakistan region in order to serve Osama bin Laden, was an innocent, unintended fatality, when killed by a US drone attack.
Gadahn was labeled, even by the mainstream press, as a terrorist and a “Propagandist for Al Qaeda Who Sold Terror in English.” As a spokesperson for an infamous terror group, Gadahn was seemingly considered an appropriate target for elimination. His killing at the time was largely unquestioned by the United States press corp.
To be clear, there are legitimate journalists, of multiple nationalities and partisan interests, who have been unintentionally killed in Israel’s war of defense in Gaza. These deaths are all tragic. Journalism is a noble endeavor that serves the common good. Naturally, even anti-Western partisan journalists should be protected in battle, and their unintentional deaths mourned.
But those on the payroll of organizations designed to promote and defend the actions of terrorists should not be considered in the same class as journalists. They do not objectively or even subjectively report news. Their only evil, criminal purpose is to abet the machinery of mass murder and terror. To mourn the deaths of these terror propagandists is another example of media hypocrisy and glaring bias.
Barry Ziman is a novelist and government relations professional living in Virginia.
The post Terrorists Aren’t Journalists first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.