Were a majority of the Gazan journalists killed since October 7th, 2023 linked to terrorist organizations?

This is a contested and politically charged question, and the answer depends heavily on which source you consult — there is no independent, universally accepted consensus figure.

The "majority" claim comes primarily from Israeli government-linked sources:

The Israeli-government-linked Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center released a study making this exact claim. The study examined the identities of 266 individuals identified as journalists or media workers killed in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and November 30, 2025, and found that at least 157 of them — roughly 60 percent — were members of terror groups or clearly affiliated with them, including 104 linked to Hamas and 45 to Islamic Jihad. The center said its conclusions are based on public records, Palestinian media reports, and Hamas documents seized by the Israel Defense Forces during ground operations in Gaza.

The IDF has made similar claims independently: the IDF revealed that 170 individuals who were misleadingly presented as civilian "journalists" killed in strikes on Gaza were actually affiliated with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations, verified using documentation released by the terrorist organizations themselves and materials recovered by Israeli troops.

Press freedom groups dispute the scale of this claim, though they acknowledge some cases:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a leading press freedom organization, has had to walk back some names from its list after terror groups themselves published obituaries claiming certain individuals as combatants. The Committee to Protect Journalists announced it will conduct a review of its database of members of the media killed during the war, after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad published obituaries that identified individuals CPJ listed as journalists as members of the terrorist groups. An earlier 2024 report found that out of 100 Palestinian journalists on CPJ's list, 33 worked for "Hamas-affiliated" media such as Al-Aqsa Voice Radio, Al-Quds Al-Youm, and Quds News Network, while two more worked for PIJ outlets. That's roughly a third identified as working for affiliated outlets — not necessarily being combatants themselves — well short of a majority.

Independent audits by pro-Israel watchdog groups claim CPJ's list still undercounts terror ties: at least 25 of the CPJ-endorsed names reviewed by HonestReporting are confirmed terrorists identified through "official martyr notices" published by their respective jihadist organizations, and all of those included are confirmed battlefield terrorists who were killed in Israeli operations, but still remain on CPJ's list due to their dual affiliation with various media outlets.

However, in high-profile individual cases like Anas al-Sharif, the claim of terror affiliation remains disputed by press organizations: the IDF claimed Al-Sharif was a Hamas operative – an allegation rejected by Al Jazeera and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Similarly, for Hossam Shabat, the IDF, without providing verifiable evidence, had previously accused Shabat and five other Palestinian journalists of being members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, accusations which he denied.

Bottom line: The claim that a majority (roughly 60%) of Gazan journalists killed were linked to terrorist organizations originates from Israeli military and pro-Israel research sources, which base their conclusions on seized Hamas documents and martyr notices published by the terror groups themselves. Press freedom organizations like CPJ have acknowledged some overlap between media work and terror-group affiliation (around a third in earlier counts) but have not endorsed the 60% figure, and continue to dispute specific high-profile cases as unsubstantiated. There is no independent, neutral verification of the 60% figure — it remains a matter of significant dispute between Israeli sources and international press freedom organizations.