International Report: 2025 the Deadliest Year for Journalism, Israel Responsible for Two-Thirds of Victims

The Committee to Protect Journalists, from its New York headquarters, issued a shocking report documenting the killing of 129 journalists and media workers worldwide during 2025. The report confirmed that this number represents the highest annual toll recorded since the Committee began systematic documentation of press freedom violations in 1992.

The international organization held the Israeli occupation army directly responsible for the killing of two-thirds of the total victims recorded globally last year. Sources explained that Israeli forces carried out an unprecedented number of targeted killings of journalists, which exceeds the crimes of any other government military force historically monitored.

Most of the documented crimes were concentrated in the Gaza Strip, where most of the victims were Palestinian journalists targeted while performing their professional duties. The report stressed that these targeting incidents come in the context of attempts to obscure the truth and prevent the transmission of an accurate picture of the deteriorating humanitarian and field conditions within the besieged Strip.

In an international comparison, the report indicated that the number of victims in other conflict zones appeared very small compared to what Israel committed. Sudan recorded the killing of 9 journalists, while 4 others were killed in Ukraine, figures described by the report as very low when compared to the death toll in Palestine.

The report revealed a dangerous development in targeting methods, with drones emerging as a primary tool in assassination operations. The Committee monitored 39 drone-related killings, 28 of which were carried out by the Israeli army in Gaza, while the other cases were distributed among Sudan, Ukraine, and Iraq.

For her part, Jodie Ginsberg, the CEO of the Committee, warned that the absence of international accountability encourages the continuation of these crimes. She stated that targeting media personnel is a dangerous indicator of broader attacks on public freedoms, emphasizing that impunity endangers the entire international community.

The Committee strongly criticized the culture of impunity dominating the international scene, where transparent investigations have been conducted only in very rare cases. Among the 47 cases of deliberate killing and direct assassination documented by the Committee in 2025, no legal accountability or prosecution of perpetrators has been recorded so far.

Violations were not limited to armed conflict zones but also extended to countries suffering from rampant organized crime and corruption. Mexico recorded the killing of at least 6 journalists, amid a dismal failure of federal mechanisms to provide the necessary protection for media professionals who have faced continuous threats for years.

In the Philippines, the report monitored the killing of 3 journalists by shooting last year, with most of these cases remaining unresolved against unknown perpetrators. These figures reflect a sharp decline in professional safety levels in Asian and Latin American countries, especially for journalists working on political corruption issues.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, founded in 1981, concluded that governments' failure to protect journalists opens the door to further violations. The organization called on the international community to take firm measures to ensure the safety of media teams and hold accountable military forces that systematically target them.

Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more critical than ever, and attacks on the press are an indicator of the collapse of freedoms.