Middle East & North Africa

  

Gaza journalists struggle to report as they ‘expect to die daily’

New York-based Hoda Osman has spent the past six months helping Gaza journalists replace cameras, laptops, and phones lost or damaged in the Israel-Gaza war. More than 5,500 miles away, in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Wafa’ Abdel Rahman coordinates humanitarian supplies and cash assistance for reporters under Israeli bombardment, while Rania Khayyat,…

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‘Back to the dark ages’: Editor Ataf Mohamed on Sudan’s wartime communications blackout

For the last six weeks, Sudan has been almost totally cut off from the world. Since early February, there has been an internet and telecommunications blackout in the country, where a war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed more than 13,000, displaced millions, and threatens to cause widespread…

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Palestinian journalists are being imprisoned by Israel in record numbers

In October, when the Israel-Gaza war began, Alaa al-Rimawi snapped into action, covering developments on J-Media, the West Bank-based news agency he directs, as well as on TikTok and Facebook. But his conflict coverage would be short-lived. Less than two weeks after the start of the war, Israel banned J-Media on security grounds and quickly…

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Relatives of Al-Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa, who was killed on December 15, 2023, by an Israeli airstrike, mourn his death during his funeral in the town of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on December 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman)

Israel-Gaza war takes record toll on journalists

Update: As of December 31, 2023, at least 77 journalists and media workers were killed; 70 of them Palestinian. More journalists have been killed in the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year, according to CPJ data. By December 20, 2023, at…

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Faces of impunity across the world

CPJ’s 2023 Global Impunity Index lists the top 12 countries where the murderers of journalists go free. But impunity knows no borders. The mosaic below shows the faces of slain journalists around the world. Beneath each journalist’s photo is the location of their death. Click the images for more details about these unsolved cases. (Photo grid by Geoff McGhee)

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Press freedom activists hold a candlelight vigil in front of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, D.C. to mark the first anniversary of the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (Reuters/Sarah Silbiger)

Mahoney: Biden’s Saudi policy stymies quest for Khashoggi justice

From pariah to potential partner. That’s how far Saudi Arabia has come for President Joe Biden in the five years since Riyadh sent a death squad to butcher journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The administration’s ongoing rehabilitation of the petrodollar kingdom and its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely known as MBS, seems to…

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Arrests of Palestinian journalists since start of Israel-Gaza war

Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, an unprecedented number of journalists and media workers have been arrested — often without charge — in what they and their attorneys say is retaliation for their journalism and commentary. As of August 18, 2025, CPJ has documented 90 arrests of journalists in the Palestinian territories of the…

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Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting during the Israel-Gaza war

Since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, journalists and media across the region have faced a hostile environment that has made reporting on the war exceptionally challenging.   In addition to documenting the growing tally of journalists killed and injured, CPJ’s research has found multiple kinds of incidents of journalists being targeted while carrying…

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Tipping the scales: Journalists’ lawyers face retaliation around the globe

The smears began the day Christian Ulate began representing jailed Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora: tweets accusing the lawyer of being a leftist or questioning his legal credentials. He began to fear he was being surveilled.  Ulate had taken over the case in August 2022 from two other lawyers, Romeo Montoya García and Mario Castañeda,…

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‘Breathtakingly hard’: Iranian journalist Saeede Fathi on 2 months in Evin Prison

Saeede Fathabadi, who goes professionally by Saeede Fathi, was living in Vienna last year when she took a reporting trip to her native Iran to gather footage for a documentary about female athletes in the country. The topic is close to her heart; she used to be a professional basketball player but quit after she was unable…

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