CPJ: Israel responsible for two-thirds of record 2025 journalist killings

Record 129 journalists killed in 2025, CPJ says, with two-thirds linked to Israel

A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed worldwide in 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists said, marking a second straight annual high and the deadliest year since the watchdog began tracking deaths more than three decades ago.

“Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more important than ever,” CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement. “We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”

Two-thirds of last year’s deaths were attributed to Israeli fire, the CPJ reported, underscoring the extreme dangers facing the press in and around Gaza. Of the 86 journalists killed by Israeli forces, more than 60% were Palestinians reporting from Gaza, the group said. Israel’s military maintains it does not deliberately target journalists.

The report pointed to an intensifying reliance on armed drones in conflict zones, documenting 39 cases in which journalists were killed by drone strikes in 2025. That tally included 28 killings by Israel in Gaza and five by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. In Ukraine, four journalists were killed by Russian military drones — the highest annual toll of journalist deaths in the war since 15 were killed in 2022, according to the CPJ.

The overall rise in killings, the group said, was also driven by persistent impunity and a lack of transparent investigations into attacks on the press — conditions that leave reporters more vulnerable and perpetrators unpunished. The watchdog cited cases in which authorities failed to announce credible inquiries or bring suspects to trial.

The toll extended far beyond active war zones. In Mexico, six journalists were killed in 2025 and all cases remain unsolved, reflecting the country’s long-standing crisis of violence and impunity against the press. The Philippines saw three reporters shot dead.

CPJ also documented targeted killings linked to investigative reporting and corruption. In Bangladesh, a reporter was hacked to death by suspects connected to a fraud ring, the report said. Similar organized crime-related deaths were recorded in India and Peru.

In Saudi Arabia, columnist Turki al-Jasser was executed by the state after a conviction on what CPJ described as spurious national security and financial crime charges. It was the kingdom’s first documented killing of a journalist since the 2018 death of Jamal Khashoggi.

The figures from Gaza cap a devastating year for local media. Among those killed was Anas al-Sharif of Al Jazeera, who died in an Israeli attack in Gaza last year, according to previous reports. The CPJ said that Palestinian reporters operating with scant protective gear and limited access to safe corridors faced the most acute risks.

The watchdog’s latest accounting underscores a widening threat landscape: conventional frontline risks amplified by drone warfare; targeted assassinations tied to political graft and organized crime; and state actions that silence critical journalism under the color of law. It urged governments and armed groups to safeguard media workers, conduct independent investigations into killings and hold perpetrators to account.

CPJ’s data illuminate the human cost of documenting conflict and corruption — and the systemic failures that allow those who kill journalists to evade justice. As Ginsberg warned, the stakes extend beyond the newsroom: A world in which reporters are killed for doing their jobs is one in which the public’s right to know becomes collateral damage.

By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.