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CPJ finds that Israel is one of the top three jailers of journalists
Israel, China and Myanmar were the top three countries detaining journalists in 2024 – according to a report by press freedom organisation Committee to Protect Journalists.
Israel has 43 journalists in detention while China has 50 and Myanmar 35. Belarus and Russia came fourth and fifth respectively.
The CPJ said that while Israel “rarely appeared” at the top of its list of offenders, following its war on Gaza, its detentions have doubled as it tries to silence coverage of its war, and arrests are at their highest since the organisation began documenting.
“Israel has committed the largest and most heinous massacre in the history of the media in the world, as Israel pursues a systematic policy of targeting Palestinian journalists with killing, wounding and arresting them,” Nasser Abu Baker, president of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate told The New Arab.
He added that Israel acts in a manner that “contradicts all international charters, laws and norms without taking into account international law”.
“Israel must bear responsibility for this massacre against the Palestinian media, and any country that violates the freedom of journalists, kills them and prevents them from working freely must be subject to legal punitive measures by the United Nations institutions.”
Israel has arrested a total of 75 journalists in Palestine, with 43 still in Israeli custody on 1 December 2024.
At least 10 journalists were held in the occupied West Bank under administrative detention, where the army is allowed to detain someone without charge for 90 days, which can be extended an unlimited number of times.
Journalists are also held under the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows Israeli forces to hold detainees for long periods without charges with limited access to legal counsel.
Israeli police also arrested journalists because they had contacted or interviewed people Israel wanted information about – lawyers told the organisation.
Israel’s war also has also been the deadliest period of journalists as of the start of 2025 with the organisation’s investigations showing at least 166 journalists and media workers were killed in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon since Israel’s offensive began.
“Israel killed journalists because they were witnesses to the truth and conveyed the truth to the world, so it kills them because it does not want the world to know the truth about its crimes,” Abu Baker says.
CPJ also noted Israeli human rights group B’Tselem’s findings on the treatment of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons. Detainees are subjected to violence, sexual assault, humiliation and degradation and deliberate starvation.
“The journalists’ detentions are symptomatic of Israel’s broader effort to prevent coverage of its actions in Gaza,” CPJ said in its report.
CPJ also highlighted how foreign correspondents are prevented from entering Palestine. The report also mentions Israel’s banning of Al Jazeera from operating in Israel and the occupied West Bank over its coverage of the genocide – which was done under a wartime law allowing Israel to shut down a foreign outlet over threats to national security.
CPJ documented its second-highest number of journalists behind bars – with a global total of at least 361 detained on 1 December 2024. At least 370 were arrested in 2022.
The organisation found the “primary drivers” of journalists being imprisoned in 2024 were ongoing authoritarian repression in countries such as China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Belarus, and Russia; conflicts such as Israel's war on Gaza and Russia's war on Ukraine economic instability in countries such as Egypt, Nicaragua, and Bangladesh.