Israel responsible for two-thirds of record 129 press killings in 2025, says CPJ

Committee to Protect Journalists report says Israel also to blame for 81% of ‘intentionally targeted’ journalist killings

A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed in the course of their work in 2025, two-thirds of them by Israeli forces, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

It was the second consecutive year in which killings of members of the press reached unprecedented levels, and the second year running in which Israel was responsible for roughly two-thirds of the total, the New York-based independent organisation, which documents attacks on journalists worldwide, said in its annual report published on Wednesday.

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Italian investigative journalism TV host targeted in bomb attack near Rome

Rudimentary but powerful device detonates outside home of Report presenter Sigfrido Ranucci in Campo Ascolano

A prominent Italian investigative journalist has been targeted in a bomb attack, with the rudimentary but powerful device almost destroying his car and damaging a neighbour’s home.

Sigfrido Ranucci, who hosts Report, an investigative programme aired by the state broadcaster, Rai, said the explosion happened about 20 minutes after he returned to his home in Campo Ascolano, close to Rome, on Thursday night.

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UN and rights groups condemn reported jailing of Wuhan Covid citizen journalist

Zhang Zhan sentenced to four years for second time on charge often used by China to target government critics

The UN, human rights groups and media freedom watchdogs have condemned reports that Zhang Zhan, a Chinese citizen journalist, was sentenced to jail for the second time last week.

Zhang, 42, is thought to have stood trial in Shanghai on Friday on a charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a charge often used in China to target critics of the government. Western diplomats were reportedly turned away from observing the trial.

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Israel attack on Yemeni newspaper was second deadliest on journalists ever recorded

Press freedom group says ‘brutal and unjustified attack’ is deadliest since 2009 Maguindanao massacre in Philippines

Thirty one journalists and media staff were killed by Israeli strikes on newspaper offices in Yemen last week in what the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Friday was the deadliest attack on journalists in the last 16 years.

Israel struck a newspaper complex in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, which housed three Houthi-connected media outlets on 10 September. At the time, members of the Yemeni army’s press arm were finishing the weekly print edition, according to the publication’s editor-in-chief, which increased the number of journalists present during the strike.

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Israel’s attack on hospital in Gaza may constitute a war crime on many fronts

Double-tap strike suggests killing of civilians, rescue workers and journalists deliberate and not a mistake

Israel’s twin strike on the Nasser hospital in Gaza, which killed five journalists including staff working for the Associated Press, Reuters, NBC and Al Jazeera, is a potential violation of international law writ large.

The attack targeted a civilian building, specifically a hospital, in a reckless double-tap strike that killed civilians, with rescue workers and journalists among them. All categories that should be protected under international law.

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Israeli unit tasked with smearing Gaza journalists as Hamas fighters – report

Israeli-Palestinian magazine says IDF ‘legitimisation cell’ set up to blunt global outrage over killing of media staff

A special unit in Israel’s military was tasked with identifying reporters it could smear as undercover Hamas fighters, to target them and to blunt international outrage over the killing of media workers, the Israeli-Palestinian outlet +972 Magazine reports.

The “legitimisation cell” was set up after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack to gather information that could bolster Israel’s image and shore up diplomatic and military support from key allies, the report said, citing three intelligence sources.

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Palestinian reporters killed, international reporters banned – Israel’s other Gaza war is over narrative

Members of press and influencers covering devastation are being silenced despite protection under international law

Israel is running two Gaza campaigns: one for military control of the strip; another for narrative control of how the world understands what happens there.

In theory, Palestinian journalists and social media influencers documenting starvation, mass killing and other Israeli war crimes in Gaza are protected civilians under international law.

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‘I risked everything’: remembering six media workers killed by Israel in Gaza

CJP says the period since 7 October 2023 has been the most deadly for journalists since it began gathering data in 1992

Journalists have been prominent among casualties since the war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s incursion into Israel in October 2023.

Some were working for well-known international media, others were employed by local news organisations. Several were high-profile veterans, but many were newcomers to the profession.

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AFP news agency calls on Israel to allow evacuation of its freelance contributors

Palestinian journalists working for French organisation say desperate hunger and lack of clean water is making them ill

News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has called on Israel to allow the immediate evacuation of its freelance contributors and their families from the Gaza Strip, a day after they warned that they were struggling to work due to starvation.

In a statement, the French news agency said its freelancers faced an “appalling situation” in Gaza. A 21-month war with Israel has devastated the territory, a conflict triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel in October 2023.

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Two men jailed for life for supplying car bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia

Robert Agius and Jamie Vella were convicted last week of their role in the anti-corruption journalist’s murder in 2017

Two men have been sentenced to life in prison for supplying the car bomb that killed the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta eight years ago.

The sentencing on Tuesday of Robert Agius and Jamie Vella, reported to be members of the island’s criminal underworld, marked a significant step in the long campaign to bring those charged with Caruana Galizia’s murder to justice.

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‘We carry on with the sadness’: new projects honor life and legacy of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

Friends and colleagues of Phillips, killed in the Amazon in 2022, completed his book, which coincides with launch of investigative Guardian podcast

Three years after the British journalist Dom Phillips and the Brazilian activist Bruno Pereira were murdered in the Amazon, two major new projects will celebrate their lives and work – and the Indigenous communities and rainforests both men sought to protect.

Friends of Phillips have completed the book he was writing at the time of his death – How to Save the Amazon – which will be published in the UK, the US and Brazil on 27 May.

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Israeli strike on hospital camp used by Gaza journalists kills 10 people

Dozens seriously injured as fire engulfs tents used by Palestinian journalists in hospital complex in Khan Younis

An Israeli airstrike on a tent camp within a hospital complex in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis has killed 10 people, including a journalist, while seriously injuring dozens more after their encampment caught fire.

Images and video from the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis showed people desperately attempting to extinguish the fires as it burned through a row of tents. One video showed people screaming as a bystander attempted to move a burning piece of furniture, while a journalist, later identified as Ahmed Mansour of the news outlet Palestine Today, sat upright engulfed by the blaze.

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Friday briefing: How Gaza is becoming the deadliest conflict zone for journalists

In today’s newsletter: Media workers in Gaza and the West Bank have faced relentless danger, and attacks on press freedom on the rise across the world

Good morning.

More than 170 journalists have been killed in Gaza since 2023, with some estimates putting the toll as high as 206. It is the deadliest conflict for media workers in recent history. In a sobering report, Thaslima Begum gathered some of their stories. And attacks on journalists worldwide are on the rise, with deaths occurring everywhere from the Middle East to Europe.

UK economy | Lower-income households are on track to become £500 a year poorer by the end of the decade as a result of the UK chancellor’s spring statement, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation.

Monarchy | King Charles required hospital observation on Thursday after experiencing “temporary side-effects” as part of his medical treatment for cancer, Buckingham Palace said.

Canada | Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, has said the era of deep ties with the US “is over” as governments from Tokyo to Berlin and Paris sharply criticised Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on car imports, with some threatening retaliatory action.

Asia-Pacific | Japan has for the first time released plans to evacuate more than 100,000 civilians from some of its remote islands near Taiwan in the event of conflict amid escalating tensions between Beijing and Taipei.

Environment | Supporters of the climate group Just Stop Oil have announced that after three years of disruptive protests they are ending their campaign of civil resistance. Hannah Hunt, whose speech on Valentine’s Day 2022 marked the beginning of the campaign, made the announcement outside Downing Street in London on Thursday.

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Eight journalists covering anti-government protests held in Turkey

Arrests condemned as ‘unlawful’ by press freedom groups, highlighting growing repression amid demonstrations against President Erdoğan

A prosecutor in Istanbul has remanded eight journalists in custody, reversing a decision to release them after they were arrested for covering Turkey’s largest anti-government protests in years.

The journalists were among 10 arrested in dawn raids on their homes earlier this week. An Istanbul court initially ruled the journalists should be released before reversing the decision and issuing an official arrest order, according to their lawyers and representatives.

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US journalist sues Indian government after losing his overseas citizenship

Raphael Satter had his OCI card taken away after publishing a story critical of an Indian businessman

A US journalist has taken the Indian government to court after his Indian overseas citizenship was unilaterally cancelled, after the publication of a story critical of a prominent Indian businessman.

Raphael Satter, who covers cybersecurity for the Reuters news agency in the US, received a letter from India’s ministry of home affairs in early December 2023, accusing him of producing work that “maliciously” tarnished India’s reputation and informing him that his Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card had been cancelled.

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UN human rights chief ‘deeply worried by fundamental shift’ in US

Volker Türk alarmed at growing power of ‘unelected tech oligarchs’ and warns gender equality is being rolled back

The UN human rights chief has warned of a “fundamental shift” in the US and sounded the alarm over the growing power of “unelected tech oligarchs”, in a stinging rebuke of Washington weeks into Donald Trump’s presidency.

Volker Türk said there had been bipartisan support for human rights in the US for decades but said he was “now deeply worried by the fundamental shift in direction that is taking place domestically and internationally”.

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British journalist missing in Brazil for 11 days

Foreign correspondents’ association urges authorities to step up search for Charlotte Alice Peet, 32

A British journalist has been missing in Brazil for 11 days, a foreign correspondents’ association in the country said on Tuesday, urging authorities to step up their search efforts.

Charlotte Alice Peet, 32, last communicated with a friend on 8 February, according to a statement from the Rio de Janeiro-based Association of Foreign Press Correspondents (ACIE).

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British investigative journalist banned from Cambodia

Treatment of Gerald Flynn, who writes for the outlet Mongabay, condemned as attack on independent media

A British environmental and investigative journalist has been banned from entering Cambodia, in what press groups have condemned as yet another attack on independent media by the country’s authoritarian leaders.

Gerald Flynn, who writes for the news outlet Mongabay, was denied entry to Cambodia on 5 January as he returned from a holiday, according to the publication, which said he was forced on to a plane and flown to Thailand.

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Italian journalist Cecilia Sala returns home after release from prison in Iran

Sala, who had been held since 19 December, greeted by family members and Italian PM at Rome airport

Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist who was held in solitary confinement for almost three weeks in Iran, has returned home after being freed from prison.

A plane carrying the 29-year-old landed at Rome’s Ciampino airport on Wednesday afternoon, where she was greeted by family members and politicians including the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.

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Italy presses Iran for immediate release of journalist held in Tehran

Foreign ministry summons ambassador as Cecilia Sala reportedly tells family she sleeps on floor of prison cell

Italy’s foreign ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador on Wednesday and urged the immediate release of an Italian journalist held in solitary confinement in Tehran.

Cecilia Sala, a 29-year-old freelance journalist for Il Foglio newspaper and a podcaster, reportedly spoke of the harsh conditions of her detainment in the notorious Evin prison, including having to sleep on the floor of her cell without a mattress.

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