The propaganda war against Israel just keeps going. One article after another, and on top of that the shaky reports from NGOs and UN commissions. Every new accusation feeds the perception that ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’. But do the media ever report when new facts cast doubt on earlier assumptions? This piece is about one such accusation: that Israel deliberately targets journalists.

Remember September 2025? The NVJ (Nederlandse Vereniging van Journalisten — the Dutch Association of Journalists) issued a dramatic appeal, and many Dutch media outlets heeded it. The ‘quality newspapers of the Netherlands’ joined the Media Blackout for Gaza campaign.

The NVJ’s central message was: “At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed.” The explanation given was: “Nearly 200 journalists have now died, local journalists in Gaza are completely unsafe and are a target of the Israeli army, and after almost two years international journalists are still being denied access to Gaza.”

There was already plenty to criticise in these statements at the time, and new facts have since come to light that deserve attention. But let’s first look at the statements themselves.

Who Informs Us?

To begin with, it was rather naive to assume that we are well informed by those reporting from Gaza. The Canadian journalist Matti Friedman worked for the AP in Israel from 2006 to 2011, and later spoke about the intimidation by Hamas. Even the international media cannot report freely on Gaza.

If international media already have to tread carefully, this certainly applies to citizen journalists in Gaza. Those who have the courage to report critically often don’t live to tell the story. Those who remain are — voluntarily or not — Hamas propagandists or even active Hamas members, whether or not attached to combat units. This includes many of the journalists on whose behalf our media took part in the Media Blackout for Gaza.

But most Dutch media don’t believe this. As the NOS in August 2025 already put it: “It’s a recurring phenomenon: whenever Palestinian journalists in Gaza are killed by the Israeli army, the accusation follows that they were fighting for Hamas.” The headline already read: “Israel brands journalists in Gaza as Hamas fighters, but provides no evidence.”

Incidentally, the NOS didn’t represent Israel’s statements very accurately here. Israel has never claimed that all journalists killed were fighting for Hamas. And in the cases where Israel did make that accusation, it usually came with evidence — as this very article shows, despite its (therefore) inaccurate headline.

Israeli Research

Then again, there’s something to be said for being suspicious of accusations. Allegations that Israel deliberately targets innocent journalists should be examined critically, just as Israel’s own claims should be examined critically. But what happens when Israel does provide evidence?

In December 2025, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center investigated 266 journalists on the death lists. The researchers concluded that sixty percent had ties to terror groups or had even taken part in combat. Of the remaining forty percent, the Meir Amit Centre found no incriminating material — meaning, according to the researchers, that these could be genuinely innocent journalists.

The evidence in the Meir Amit report consists of statements from terror organisations, mentions in those organisations’ own documents, photos and videos of military activity, and the dead journalists’ own social media posts. That is concrete, verifiable evidence — and after all the complaints about ‘no evidence’, it would surely have deserved a proper hearing.

The report received almost no attention in the Netherlands, certainly not from major outlets like the NOS. And this despite the fact that these same media, echoing the NVJ and various human rights organisations, claim Israel deliberately targets journalists. Happy to publish the accusations, not so happy to publish the counter-evidence. But inconvenient facts have an annoying habit of resurfacing — sometimes from unexpected directions.

Honouring Terrorists

In recent weeks, online obituaries have started appearing: tributes from Hamas and other terror groups to their fallen commanders — many of whom turn out to have been listed as journalists. The tweet below is from 1 June, but the stream of posts hasn’t stopped. Israeli researchers are closely monitoring the terror groups’ channels, and new posts arrive daily.

Most of the terrorists memorialised so far are commanders, so the terror groups are apparently working through the ranks. But if dozens of commanders alone have already turned out to have posed as journalists, how many lower-ranking operatives are still hiding among the lists of dead journalists?

Now that the terror groups are revealing more and more names, some organisations are quietly trimming their lists. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has already reduced its list from 276 names to 259. Other organisations stick to different totals, and many of them refuse to revise their lists at all.

One organisation — Stop Murdering Journalists — even told the Times of Israel that it didn’t matter what motives a journalist had. If a Hamas commander claimed to be a journalist, he should not have been killed.

Israel has always denied simply murdering journalists. Of course innocent people die — that is, unfortunately, a fact of war — but innocent journalists are not targets. Now the terror groups themselves are confirming Israel’s suspicions about many of the dead journalists. Yet the Israel-critical media stay as silent as the grave about this slowly rising tide of evidence.

Letting Journalists into Gaza

Instead, some critics latch onto another grievance from the NVJ’s statement: ‘international journalists are still, after almost two years, being denied access to Gaza’. This grievance is often paired with the accusation that Israel wants to prevent journalists from reporting on Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

This accusation is absurd, for two reasons. The first is explained by Joel Pollak in the tweet below. Journalists can in fact enter Gaza, provided they accept protection from the Israeli army. Because a journalist who wants to report critically on Hamas is not safe in the Gaza Strip, and risks being assaulted, taken hostage, or killed.

The second reason is that there is a daily stream of reports from Gaza about alleged Israeli war crimes. Our newspapers are full of it. This ‘news’ comes from sources under Hamas’s control — sources that will never report on Hamas’s own crimes, such as stealing aid supplies or torturing and executing opponents.

In short: Hamas can censor to its heart’s content, but Israel can never get it right. If Israel admits journalists under protection, that’s censorship. If Israel were to let journalists into the area unprotected and something happened to them, Israel would get the blame. Incidentally, information does occasionally come out of Gaza that Hamas doesn’t want out — strangely enough, many media outlets ignore precisely that information.

Empathy for the Oppressors

It boils down to this: all these media outlets and organisations heroically champion journalists who have Hamas’s stamp of approval, while ignoring what this ‘reporting’ actually means for the people of Gaza. As Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib — a Palestinian dissident who fled the Strip — puts it: these ‘journalists’ do not speak for the people of Gaza — they help the oppressor.

Normally I just link to a tweet like this, but in this case I took a screenshot of the entire post. Read what this dissident wrote, and consider what Western media are doing to the people of Gaza by elevating propagandists who daily sacrifice the blood of ordinary Gazans on the altar of ’the resistance’.

And isn’t this always the tragedy of the Palestinians? Few people are genuinely interested in them. There were no mass demonstrations when tens of thousands of Palestinians died in Syria. There were no accusations of ‘apartheid’ against neighbouring countries that denied them civil rights and discriminated against them severely. Palestinian suffering only receives attention when Israel can be blamed for it.

Uprising in Gaza

The supposed empathy of our media for Gaza and for these journalists is nauseating. It is not empathy — at best it’s the promotion of a fashionable narrative, at worst it’s thinly veiled hatred of Israel. And if anything reveals that, it’s the instant evaporation of interest the moment Gazans rise up against their own oppressors. That was clear again in March 2025.

Footage emerged from Gaza of large-scale demonstrations against Hamas. The protests weren’t confined to a single neighbourhood or city; people took to the streets all across the Strip. They chanted slogans against Hamas, and against Al Jazeera — every bit as much a Hamas mouthpiece. I gathered the footage and went looking for coverage of it.

Only the Telegraaf reported on it. Otherwise, dead silence. Only after days of protest did a few stories finally trickle in — and how cautiously. Gazans protesting against Hamas? Against Al Jazeera, our ‘quality media’s’ favourite channel? That didn’t fit the narrative. The NOS even suggested that Israel might be behind it…

And now Palestinians are once again calling for an uprising in Gaza — an uprising against the oppressors. Will the ‘brave’ citizen journalists in Gaza — heroes of the Dutch children’s news — report on it? Don’t count on it. Will Hamas crush it violently? Count on that.

In October 2025, the whole world still knew Hamas had to disarm. That was a core element of the ceasefire. Now it seems to have been forgotten already. Our media are once again trotting along obediently behind Hamas propaganda and railing against Israel whenever it takes action against terrorists.

It doesn’t matter how much evidence Israel produces.

When it comes to the truth, the Dutch media blackout never ends.

 

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