LONDON: The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said on Monday that eight journalists were killed and 467 violations were committed against media workers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in the first half of 2026.
The figures were presented at a news conference in Ramallah, where the union accused Israeli forces and settlers of carrying out a systematic campaign against journalists and press freedom.
Mohammed Al-Lahham, head of the syndicate’s Freedoms Committee, said the incidents were part of “a systematic policy aimed at obscuring the media landscape” in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“The targeting of journalists is not a series of isolated incidents, but part of an aggression targeting the right to knowledge and the transmission of truth,” he said.
The report said that more than 41 percent of the violations involved preventing coverage or detaining press crews, with 192 cases classified as direct attempts to restrict media work.
It said the eight deaths brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed since October 2023 to 264, according to syndicate figures.
The report also documented 27 arrests, 29 incidents involving live fire, 78 cases of tear gas or stun grenades, 14 physical assaults, two gunshot injuries, 16 armed threats and six attacks allegedly carried out by Israeli settlers.
In addition, the syndicate said Israeli authorities barred 19 journalists from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem and recorded 22 cases of media equipment being seized or damaged.
The report said Israeli forces also raided seven homes and media organizations, closed three media institutions and blocked access to five websites during the reporting period.
February recorded the highest number of violations with 122, followed by January with 109 and June with 89, according to the syndicate.
Since October 2023, it said it has documented 4,127 violations against Palestinian journalists, including 193 arrests, the destruction of 187 media institutions and damage to 140 journalists’ homes.
It also said 713 relatives of journalists had been killed over the same period.
Nasser Abu Bakr, head of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, said the group was pursuing legal action before international bodies and had presented evidence at a conference at the UN in Geneva under the auspices of the International Federation of Journalists.
He said France’s national journalists’ union planned to file a lawsuit in French courts over alleged war crimes against journalists.
Abu Bakr also urged the International Criminal Court to speed up its investigations into alleged crimes against Palestinian journalists and disclose any action taken against those responsible.
The Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces have repeatedly denied deliberately targeting journalists, saying their forces act against legitimate military threats and accusing some media workers killed in the conflict of being embedded with armed groups.
