When Israel barred international journalists from Gaza in October 2023, the explanation was for their “safety” claiming that reporters could not be protected in an active war zone. One year after the one-sided ceasefire, Israel’s excuse has been invalidated, yet the ban remains. Leaving behind, unchecked, the largest graveyard on earth, and an occupying army still refusing to let the world’s press see what is buried in it.

In April 2026, the Foreign Press Association, joined by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the Union of Journalists in Israel, petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to end the military’s ban on foreign reporters entering Gaza, arguing that a “ceasefire” was in place, all captives had been released, and there was no substantiated threat to journalists. The government opposed the petition, this time invoking the war with Iran as a new justification. The excuses kept changing. The ban didn’t.

What has not changed is the price Palestinian journalists paid for doing the job Israel would not let anyone else do. Hundreds of local journalists have been killed, more than in all wars combined since Vietnam.

What has not changed is the price Palestinian journalists paid for doing the job Israel would not let anyone else do. Hundreds of local journalists have been killed, more than in all wars combined since Vietnam.

Three died together in January 2026, after the “ceasefire,” documenting a genocide. The message was clear: with foreign correspondents locked out, murder Palestinian journalists and bury war crimes with the children under the rubble.

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The same Israeli script plays in the West Bank, where the threat is Jewish mobs, the state empowers. When journalists reported on Zionist Youth violence in Jannatah near Bethlehem in August 2026, soldiers declared the area a “closed military zone” and ordered the........

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