Israel's targeting of journalists and paramedics in Gaza has long ceased to be an exceptional or shock occurrence – the killing of civilians working in both sectors has been a core facet of the genocidal violence inflicted on Gaza since 8 October 2023.
On 25 August 2025, Israeli forces bombed Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, killing five journalists and wounding others in broad daylight and in front of the cameras. Those killed were journalist Mariam Abu Daqqa (Associated Press and Independent Arabia), cameraman Hussam al-Masri (Reuters), photojournalist Mohammed Salama (Al Jazeera), photographer Muath Abu Taha (NBC), and Ahmed Abu Aziz (Quds Feed).
Such killings in Gaza are constant and daily, although sheer chance dictates whether they are caught on camera. In the case of these deaths, Israel's disregard for all red lines when it comes to the targeting of civilians was plain to see.
Last March, sheer chance again saw mobile phone footage salvaged capturing the targeting of paramedics near Rafah city, in southern Gaza, where the Israeli army executed 15 emergency workers, before justifying and excusing their crime on fabricated technical and security grounds. Their false testimony was revealed when the footage came to light. As always, global media agencies, including AP and the BBC at the time, uncritically platformed Israel's narrative justifying the crime and burying the truth.
But in August, in Khan Younis, the crime was overt and carried out in broad daylight. No attempt was made to hide Israel's blatant violation of international law, under which the targeting of civilians, journalists, and paramedics are unequivocally war crimes.
This new mode of killing openly reveals a deeper shift taking place - the creeping normalisation of violence which is being rendered a "natural" daily practice. The silence of international media institutions functions to normalise this brutality across the world. These institutions not only participate in this process, but are also engaged in the ethical, humanitarian, and legal abandonment of those who risk their lives to transmit images and content to them during unimaginable hardship.
Institutional distancing
While relaying the Nasser Hospital attack, AP presented Mariam Abu Daqqa as a journalist who "freelanced for AP". This description, even if accurate in contractual terms, functioned to downplay Abu Daqqa's professional career, and place a distance between AP and Abu Daqqa. It subtly transformed the crime from the direct targeting of a journalist in the field to an incident peripheral to the remit of the news agency.
While AP included a more human description of Abu Daqqa in the body of the story, describing her as "the mother of a 13-year-old boy, who was using Nasser Hospital as a base to cover doctors' efforts to save children from starvation," this dimension was placed firmly behind the contractual label.
There seemed to be an inherent contradiction in AP's acknowledgement of her vital journalistic fieldwork while determining to label her a "freelancer" - a lexical choice alleviating the agency's professional and legal liability for her.
This suggested that the report's goal was not to honour a journalist who lost her life as she carried out her work, but to protect AP from possible legal and political ramifications by framing the murder as a tragic incident where individuals were killed, rather than as a war crime against journalists.
Reuters' story on the Nasser Hospital bombing provides another example of the same function at play, also presenting the victims as "freelancers" and "contractors" to downplay the affiliation between the journalists and the agencies they worked for: "Cameraman Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters contractor, was killed near a live broadcasting position operated by Reuters", and "photographer Hatem Khaled, also a Reuters contractor, was wounded".
Legally irrelevant – but that's not the point
Article 79 of the first additional protocol of the Geneva Conventions (1977) clearly states: "Journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians and must be protected as such". The text doesn't place any condition relating to whether the journalist is a permanent employee, a contractor, or a freelancer.
However, while legally irrelevant, their use in media discourse serves other, chilling purposes.
One - they grant major media institutions a form of institutional, civil and legal insulation, removing their contractual obligation toward the victims and their families, who won't be able to claim compensation or accountability from the agency – as they would if the journalist were recognised as an employee.
Two – they also work to influence public opinion, by presenting the targeted journalists as unaffiliated or temporary workers. This distracts from the gravity of the crime and transforms it from an orchestrated assault on press freedom into a tragic incident, unconnected to their profession.
Thus, the frequent use of terms like "freelancer" and "contractor" essentially advances the gradual normalisation of violence against journalists through language that appears neutral, but in essence undermines the victim, obscures the perpetrator, and deflects from the crime.
Uncritically platforming Israeli propaganda
Simultaneously, Israel's official response was presented in veiled apologetic tones by Reuters, who quoted the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Israel deeply regrets the tragic mishap that occurred today at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza. Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff, and all civilians", and affirms its "war is with Hamas".
Here a documented crime is rehashed as a regrettable tragedy, within the frame of the war on Hamas.
Meanwhile, Reuters also published the army's official statement with no caveats as to its credibility: "The IDF deplores any harm to those not involved and in no way directs attacks at journalists as such, and works as much as possible to minimize harm to them while maintaining the security of our forces."
This language functions to provoke suspicion as to the innocence of the victims: it apologises only for the harm to those "not involved", implicitly suggesting that some victims were "involved". The crime is also recast as a "collateral damage" incident during efforts to protect the forces – an unquestioned (by Reuters) reordering of priorities whereby protecting soldiers comes first, then civilians, where possible.
This discourse reflects a well-established Israeli strategy: acknowledge the act while denying the intent, apologise for the harm but not the crime, and tying every target into the grand narrative of "the war on Hamas".
All of this completely aligns with the language of the Western agencies which adopt a false and misleading neutrality, whereby blatant war crimes are obscured and targeted killings presented as peripheral incidents in a murky "war".
This complicity has not gone unnoticed by those within the media organisations themselves. Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink announced her resignation from Reuters following the Nasser Hospital attack, after eight years working with them, due to what she called the agency's "betrayal of journalists".
Zink called out Reuters' role as being complicit in "enabling the systematic assassination" of journalists in Gaza, and ended her resignation statement stating, "at this point I can't conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief."
The targeting of journalists and medics in Gaza cannot be read as incidental events or a "tragic mishaps"; it is part of the very structure of violence that seeks to smash the tools of witness, and crush those who convey the truth.
Faced with this recurrent pattern, the responsibility to rename things as they truly are - crimes, not incidents; targeting, not mistakes; accountability, not coincidence - becomes an ethical and political duty in the name of restoring dignity to the victims and to the very meaning of journalism itself. It is an act of resistance against erasure and annihilation.
Nour Balousha is a Palestinian poet, writer, and journalist based in Brussels.
This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original article click here.
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