Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Tuesday that Israel was responsible for nearly half of all journalists killed this year worldwide, with 29 Palestinian reporters slain by its forces in Gaza.

In its annual report, the Paris-based media freedom group said the total number of journalists killed reached 67 globally this year, slightly up from the 66 killed in 2024.

Israeli forces accounted for 43 percent of the total, making them “the worst enemy of journalists,” RSF said in its report, which documented deaths over 12 months from December 2024.

The most deadly single attack, it said, was a so-called “double-tap” strike on a hospital in south Gaza on August 25, which killed five journalists, including two contributors to international news agencies Reuters and the Associated Press. Israel said the strikes on the Nasser hospital targeted a Hamas surveillance camera, but expressed regret for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “tragic mishap,” and the Israel Defense Forces launched an inquiry into the attack. The incident drew international condemnation; even US President Donald Trump, a key Israeli ally, said he was “not happy.”

In total, since the start of hostilities in Gaza in October 2023 with the Hamas-led slaughter in southern Israel, nearly 220 journalists have died, making Israel the biggest killer of journalists worldwide........

© The Times of Israel