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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.
The @guardian is mourning “two journalist siblings” who were killed alongside their father when Israel bombed a school.
What they should have said is Israel’s strike targeted the head of Islamic Jihad’s operations in Gaza, who was hiding in a school with his adult children. pic.twitter.com/Wy3S27R0yn
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 11, 2024
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.
BREAKING: The IDF reveals that Hamza al-Dahdouh, the “journalist” killed in Gaza earlier this week, was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s rocket engineering apparatus.
Here’s a PIJ document with Hamza’s name on it. pic.twitter.com/KaJGCkIsxE
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) January 10, 2024
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.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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