Of 128 journalists killed globally last year, 56 were Palestinian, the International Federation of Journalists said.<\/p>\n
Published On 1 Jan 20261 Jan 2026<\/p>\n
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Palestine was the deadliest place to work as a journalist in 2025, with the Middle East as a whole the most dangerous region for media professionals, according to a global journalist union.<\/p>\n
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said the region accounted for 74 deaths last year \u2013 more than half of the 128 journalists and media workers killed \u2013 in a new report released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
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The Middle East was followed by Africa with 18 deaths, Asia Pacific (15), the Americas (11) and Europe (10), according to the report. The vast majority of those killed were men, but the list included 10 women.<\/p>\n
\u201c128 journalists killed in a single year is not just a statistic; it is a global crisis. These deaths are a brutal reminder that journalists are being targeted with impunity, simply for doing their job,\u201d IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said.<\/p>\n
Palestinian journalists were the biggest cohort of victims: 56 Palestinian media professionals were killed in 2025. Yemen followed, with 13 deaths, Ukraine, with eight, and Sudan, with six, according to the IFJ.<\/p>\n
The Paris-based media union cited Israel\u2019s killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif as the most \u201cemblematic\u201d of the 56 journalists murdered in Palestine last year covering Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza. Al-Sharif, 28, was killed on August 10 alongside several colleagues when Israeli forces struck a media tent outside Gaza City\u2019s al-Shifa Hospital.<\/p>\n
The attack also killed Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, Al Jazeera camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, freelance camera operator Momen Aliwa and freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi.<\/p>\n
IFJ also cited an Israeli strike in early September on a Yemeni newspaper office as \u201cone of the worst-ever attacks on a media office\u201d. Thirteen journalists and media workers at the Houthi-affiliated \u201c26 September\u201d newspaper were killed, along with more than 20 other people.<\/p>\n
Another nine deaths were ruled as accidents, while others \u2013 including two journalists in Syria and two in Iran \u2013 were \u201ctargeted and killed\u201d because of their work, IFJ said.<\/p>\n
While the Middle East was the deadliest region for the third year in a row in 2025, the Asia Pacific accounted for the largest number of journalists and media workers behind bars. Most cases in 2025 were in China and Hong Kong, which together accounted for 143 journalists, followed by 49 in Myanmar and 37 in Vietnam.<\/p>\n
Europe was another detention hotspot last year, accounting for 149 imprisoned journalists. IFJ attributed the figure, up 40 percent from a year earlier, to \u201cintensified repression in Azerbaijan and Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of 128 journalists killed globally last year, 56 were Palestinian, the International Federation of Journalists said. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":486221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99,13191,398,3097,50,4851],"class_list":{"0":"post-486220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-israel-palestine-conflict","10":"tag-media","11":"tag-middle-east","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-palestine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115823440623979399","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}