LONDON: The Committee to Protect Journalists has announced a review of its database of journalists killed in Gaza after finding that some listed individuals had been identified as Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad combatants — a decision that has drawn criticism and exposed divisions within the organization.
As of late June, the CPJ’s count of journalists and media workers killed by Israel in Gaza and in Israeli detention centers since Oct. 7, 2023 stood at 209, after the organization removed 20 names — eight identified as combatants and a further 12 for unspecified reasons.
CPJ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said the organization did not include anyone in its database if there was evidence they were “engaging in combat or inciting imminent violence,” and that the review was intended to ensure no one actively engaged in combat remained on its lists.
CPJ said it typically uses at least two independent sources, desk-based research and in-person verification before adding a name, though Israel’s blanket ban on independent media access to Gaza has made on-the-ground verification impossible since the war began.
The full review, announced on June 25, is expected to be completed in July. Prior to the 20 removals, CPJ’s preliminary tracking across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Israel, Yemen and Iran had reached 263.
I have been informed that I'm no longer a member of the Committee to Protect Journalists board. Below is the email I sent the board last night. pic.twitter.com/jWCIMCOpf7
— Dr. Nika Soon-Shiong (@nikasoonshiong) June 29, 2026
The announcement drew sharp criticism from outside and within the organization.
Nika Soon-Shiong, publisher of Drop Site News and a CPJ board member since 2021, circulated a letter to the board raising concerns about the review’s scope before her departure from the board — which CPJ said was due to the expiry of her term, though the timing drew scrutiny.
In her letter, Soon-Shiong said the proposal to potentially exclude journalists working for “state-backed propaganda outlets” or “militant- and designated terror-affiliated organizations” had emerged from an article in the Washington Free Beacon that named her and Filipino journalist and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, describing the CPJ board as “brimming with anti-Israel sentiment.
“Reopening the question of ‘who is a journalist’ carries profound implications for the individuals CPJ protects and for the organizations with which they are affiliated. It’s a betrayal to our colleagues in Gaza who have faced the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded.”
Palestine correspondent Mohammed El-Kurd said on X that the CPJ board would “formally change its definition of who qualifies as a journalist, to broadly exclude slain Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who worked for government-funded media outlets,” while Israeli, American and Ukrainian journalists working for state-funded or military-embedded outlets would remain recognized — an inconsistency critics say undermines the organization’s neutrality.
The news was rejected by CPJ Board Chair Jacob Weisberg, who told The New Arab that “plans to formally change its definition to exclude particular groups are untrue” and that such claims “undermine the organization’s rigorous documentation of attacks on the press worldwide.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministery weighed in on Monday, writing on X that “even the Committee to Protect Journalists admits it,” and adding: “Gaza ‘journalists’ = Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.”
It's official: Even The Committee to Protect Journalists @pressfreedom admits it.
Gaza "Journalists" = Hamas & Palestinian Islamic Jihad Terroristshttps://t.co/trIW2zut04 pic.twitter.com/wyhMRtEQtW
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) June 29, 2026
CPJ’s database carries significant institutional weight, used by international media, UN bodies and diplomatic actors as an authoritative record of journalist deaths in conflict.
In 2025, it found that Israel was responsible for more than two-thirds of the 129 media fatalities documented worldwide — the highest figure since CPJ began collecting records and a record for the second consecutive year.
The controversy also follows a February report by The Electronic Intifada, which cited current and former CPJ staff accusing Ginsberg of canceling the organization’s Global Impunity Index — published since 2008 and measuring countries where the murder of journalists most often goes unpunished — because Israel was expected to top the ranking.
