The Committee to Protect Journalists, which has often listed people as assassinated journalists even when there has been mounting evidence that those people took part in terror activities in Gaza, said on Thursday that it is conducting a “full review” of its database of what it described as journalists killed in Israel’s defensive war against Hamas.
The committee “condemns in no uncertain terms the misrepresentation of combatants as journalists or media workers, or the misuse of ‘press’ insignia,” stated Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the committee.
“Such actions endanger every single individual journalist legitimately trying to report,” Ginsberg said. “We are conducting a full review of the names on our lists to confirm that no one who was actively engaged in combat is listed in our data.”
The decision to conduct the review, which is expected to be completed in July, came after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—which the committee called “militant groups”—published obituaries of members, whom the committee identified as slain journalists.
The committee, which claims that Israel killed 209 Gazan journalists since Oct. 7, says that it previously removed eight names from its database of slain journalists after establishing that they were “combatants” for Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
A dozen others were removed “for other reasons,” it said.
The United States has listed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as foreign terror organizations since 1997.
“CPJ has always been clear that we do not include anyone in our data sets if there is evidence that they were engaging in combat or inciting imminent violence,” Ginsberg stated. “This is consistent with international humanitarian law, which considers journalists affiliated with non-state actors to be civilians, provided they do not directly participate in hostilities.”
The committee said that in-person verification has been impossible since Israel has refused access for most outside researchers and journalists to the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.
The organization said that it has “repeatedly asked Israel for further information in every case documented of a journalist killed by the Israel Defense Forces.”
The organization stated that it has a stringent methodology to document and verify the killing of journalists, while critics have long said that it doesn’t follow its own guidelines.
The Israeli government publishes documentation on social media of the ties that purported journalists in Gaza have to terror activity and evidence of their direct ties to terror groups.
