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Why Does the Committee to Protect Journalists Define Terrorists as ‘Journalists’?

Released hostage Or Levy, Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, February 8, 2025. Photo: Haim Zach/GPO/Handout via REUTERS

In summing up the past year, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has asserted that 2024 was the deadliest year for journalists in the organization’s history, with Israel responsible for almost 70% of these killed media workers.

Because this is an astonishing statistic, it begs the question: How does the CPJ determine who is added to their database of media deaths and who is not? And more broadly, who does the organization consider to be a journalist?

According to its criteria, the CPJ includes journalists in its database if it “has reasonable grounds to believe they may have been killed in relation to their work: either killed accidentally in a conflict zone or on a dangerous assignment, or killed deliberately because of their journalism.”

While one might think that the CPJ’s list is focused on those who have been killed for their reporting, drawing attention to the dangers of being a journalist in hostile societies, the list is actually expanded to include anyone professing to be a media worker who is killed in a war zone, even if they are not actively taking part in their journalistic duties at the time of their deaths.

This broad criteria allows the CPJ to include, and highlight, the case of the Abu Skheil (also spelled Abu Sakhil) siblings, even though they were killed while staying in a Gazan school-turned-shelter alongside their father, who was the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad operations in Gaza.

When it comes to defining which journalists are eligible to be included in its database of killed media workers, the CPJ writes that it does not include

journalists if there is evidence that they were inciting violence with imminent effect or directly participating as combatants in armed conflict at the time of their deaths. Under international humanitarian law, journalists affiliated with an armed non-state actor – even one classified as a terrorist group by some countries – are considered civilians, not combatants, unless they are directly participating in the hostilities.

These criteria allow the CPJ to include media workers affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad TV and radio stations on its list of killed journalists.

However, the CPJ has also included certain people on its list even though, under international law, they would not be considered civilians.

For example, since Israel began its war against Hamas following the October 7 atrocities, the CPJ has included on its list people like Hamza Murtaja (who was reportedly a member of Hamas’ military wing), Mustafa Thuraya (who reportedly served as a Hamas deputy squad commander), and Mohammad Jarghoun (who reportedly served in Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades).

According to international law, “when a journalist takes a direct part in the hostilities… he loses his immunity and becomes a legitimate target.”

It should be made clear that when it comes to “non-international armed conflicts” (which Israel’s war against Hamas falls under), international law does not view a combatant who “takes a direct part in the hostilities” as only when a person is actively engaged in combat but more broadly as:

an individual whose continuous function involves the preparation, execution or command of operations amounting to direct participation in hostilities on behalf of an organized armed group is considered a member of that group (“continuous combat function”) and loses his protection against the dangers arising from military operations for the duration of that membership.

Thus, according to international law and the CPJ’s own criteria, the above-mentioned examples of Hamas terrorists who acted as journalists should not have been added to the organization’s killed media workers database.

How, then, does the CPJ justify including these terrorist-journalists on its list?

It appears that the CPJ simply dismisses the evidence provided by Israel against these journalists, and implicitly absolves them of any wrongdoing.

For example, two of the killed Gazan journalists profiled in the end-of-the-year report are Hamza Al Dahdouh and Ismail Al Ghoul.

The IDF has provided evidence that Al Dahdouh was a member of Islamic Jihad’s electronic engineering unit and previously served as a deputy commander in the Zeitoun Brigade’s rocket force, and that Al Ghoul was a member of Hamas’ elite Nukhba force and had taken part in the October 7 attacks.

However, rather than decry the manipulation of journalism in Gaza by internationally proscribed terror groups, the CPJ dismissed this evidence and included these terrorists on its list of killed media workers.

As an organization dedicated to defending journalists around the world, the CPJ should be at the forefront of the campaign to end the abuse of journalistic protections by terror groups in Gaza and to protect the hallowed status of the blue press vest.

However, rather than doing so, the CPJ has followed in the steps of other organizations to redefine international law in order to denigrate the Jewish State and its efforts to protect its citizens.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Why Does the Committee to Protect Journalists Define Terrorists as ‘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.

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