World Press Freedom Day is Saturday. The Committee to Protect Journalists notes in their recent report “2024 is deadliest year for journalists in CPJ history; almost 70 percent killed by Israel.”
The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs’ Costs of War project recently found that in Gaza, 232 journalists “were killed between October 7, 2023 and March 26, 2025, an average of around 13 killed each month.” During this time, Israel “killed more journalists than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.”
ABUBAKER ABED, [email protected], @abubakerabedw, substack.com/@abubakerabedw
Available for a limited number of interviews, Abed has been reporting from Gaza for Drop Site News and other outlets. He recently arrived in Ireland for medical treatment and to complete his studies.
He said today: “Israel has turned journalism into such a dangerous profession, it’s been targeting journalists for more than 570 days, killing more than 210. I’ve survived Israeli airstrikes, I always felt I would be killed and always feared having a press vest on. Most of the time I was reporting live, I did so without a press vest. … Reporting in Gaza is just unimaginable, it’s risking your life to do genocide documentation. … Journalism is not a crime, but Israel treats it like one. It wants to suppress our voices. It’s inhuman and barbaric and an enemy of the truth because the truth is not in its favor. … The international media organizations have failed to protect Palestinian journalists.”
In the piece “Hossam Shabat’s Last Article,” Sharif Abdel Kouddous writes: “In October, the Israeli military placed Hossam and five other Palestinian journalists on a hit list. At the time, he said it felt like he was ‘hunted.’ He called on people to speak out using the hashtag #ProtectTheJournalists: ‘I plead everyone to share the reality about Journalists in order to spread awareness about the real plans of the Israeli occupation to target journalists in order to impose a media blackout. Spread the hashtag and talk about us!’”
After Shabat’s killing, Abed wrote: “We were about to produce a story together. Then, the genocide was resumed. A few days later, he was hunted down and killed. This is truly heartbreaking and unimaginable. I don’t know why the world is still silent. Why? May his writings haunt the world forever.”
Abed’s pieces include “Jabaliya Is Now a City of Rubble” and “Massacre at 2 A.M.: Israel Resumes Indiscriminate Attacks Against Gaza, Killing Over 400 People.” See a livestream with him. Also see his articles for the Electronic Intifada.