Among the GenoLIE accusations against Israel is that the IDF intentionally targeted journalists to suppress war coverage.[i] But the casualty count on which that assertion is based has been found to include Hamas terrorists, even some who participated in the October 7 massacre.[ii] [iii]
Furthermore, even if alleged journalists do die in an active warzone where urban combat with a cynical terror group is taking place, it does not prove there is a deliberate campaign occurring to silence the press.
In June 2026, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), whose tallies had been widely used to underpin the “war on the press” narrative, opened a full review of its Gaza database after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) published obituaries identifying some of their own dead fighters – men CPJ had listed as journalists.[iv] Analysis of CPJ’s slain journalists database shows that a staggering 72% of the alleged murdered journalists had direct ties to Hamas, PIJ, or other terror groups.[v] [vi] CPJ’s chief executive condemned the “misrepresentation of combatants as journalists” and the misuse of press insignia, noting that it endangers legitimate reporters.[vii]
Anas al-Sharif, the Al Jazeera correspondent whose killing drew wide global condemnation, was identified as the commander of a Hamas cell; the IDF released a personnel file, records of his role in a rocket unit, salary documentation, and his entry in the phone directory of a Nukhba company (Hamas’s elite special forces commando unit).[viii] CNN separately confirmed that al-Sharif had worked for a Hamas media operation before the war.[ix]
Another Al Jazeera journalist, Samir Muhammad Wishah, was a commander of Hamas’s anti-tank unit who was promoted to the research and development department in the Hamas Air Force, according to IDF Arabic Spokesperson Avichay Adree.[x]
The “war on journalists” claim also fails on its own terms, as Gaza has been among the most concentrated urban battlefields of the era, with a terror group that embeds fighters, tunnels, and command posts within apartments, hospitals, and schools. In such conditions, terrorists, civilians, and working journalists died in the same crossfire.
The “war on journalists” is a hoax which depends on a further omission from the GenoLIE advocates: the intimidation, threats, and assault that Gazan journalists have faced from Hamas, not Israel. In May 2025, the CPJ published a report detailing these threats.
A correspondent, who was previously assaulted, was telephoned by a Hamas security agent who warned him not to cover an anti-Hamas demonstration and told him he would be held responsible if his wife attended.[xi]
A freelance photographer working near Nasser Hospital was beaten unconscious by armed men in plainclothes, sustaining deep head wounds.[xii] Another was beaten and interrogated for hours by masked Hamas-affiliated assailants in Rafah in November 2023, accused of covering events amounting to a coup, and released only after a promise to stop reporting. The deputy head of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate told CPJ that most journalists in Gaza started practicing self-censorship to avoid problems with Hamas.[xiii]
The hoax promoted by GenoLIE proponents – that Israel set out to kill journalists to conceal a genocide – rests on a death count still being revised, on prominent cases in which the dead were Hamas and PIJ members (and even participated in the October 7 attacks), and on the false premise that Gaza’s press was free until Israel arrived. Without that foundation, what remains is not a “war on journalists,” but a war in which terrorists disguised themselves as journalists and in which real journalists, like everyone else in Gaza, were caught in urban combat because of a war that Hamas chose to wage from among them.
The “Gaza Genocide” is one of the biggest lies of the 21st century. It was generated and promoted by anti-Zionist and antisemitic networks following the October 7 Massacre to prevent Israel from saving its hostages, delegitimize the Jewish state, and fuel global antisemitism.
Read the next piece to learn more on the Gaza GenoLIE puzzle.
[i] The Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute, “About 60% of the Gazans Classified as “Journalists” and Other Media Personnel Killed in the Gaza Strip War Belonged to Hamas and Other Terrorist Organizations,” December 2025, https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/about-60-of-the-gazans-classified-as-journalists-and-other-media-personnel-killed-in-the-gaza-strip-war-belonged-to-hamas-and-other-terrorist-organizations/
[ii] David Collier, “Journalists in Gaza,” January 2024, https://david-collier.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/240109_final_gaza_journos_1.pdf
[iii] HonestReporting, “Journalists With Hamas Ties: A Running List of HonestReporting’s Top Exposures Since Oct. 7,” October 7, 2024, https://honestreporting.com/journalists-with-hamas-ties-a-running-list-of-honestreportings-top-exposures-since-oct-7/
[iv]“Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad ties prompt CPJ review of Gaza journalist death database,” The Jerusalem Post, June 2026; and CPJ annual report on press fatalities. https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-900853; https://cpj.org/special-reports/record-129-press-members-killed-in-2025-israel-responsible-for-2-of-3-of-deaths/
[v] Ibid.
[vi] X, Leslie Kajomovitz, July 7, 2026, https://x.com/kikas6652/status/2074394415804678420
[vii] “Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad ties prompt CPJ review of Gaza journalist death database,” The Jerusalem Post, June 2026; and CPJ annual report on press fatalities. https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-900853; https://cpj.org/special-reports/record-129-press-members-killed-in-2025-israel-responsible-for-2-of-3-of-deaths/
[viii] “Amid global outcry, IDF says Al Jazeera reporter it killed was receiving Hamas salary,” The Times of Israel, August 2025. https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-global-outcry-idf-says-al-jazeera-reporter-it-killed-was-receiving-hamas-salary/
[ix]“Anas al-Sharif became the face of the war in Gaza for millions. Then Israel killed him,” CNN, August 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/11/middleeast/anas-al-sharif-al-jazeera-reporter-intl
[x] I24 News, “Al Jazeera journalist moonlighting as Hamas terrorist,” February 11, 2024, https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/1707687310-al-jazeera-journalist-moonlighting-as-hamas-terrorist
[xi] “Gaza journalists speak out about Hamas intimidation, threats, assaults,” CPJ, May 2025 — https://cpj.org/2025/05/gaza-journalists-speak-out-about-hamas-intimidation-threats-assaults/
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] Ibid.