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

This is a contested claim, with Israeli sources asserting a majority figure while press freedom organizations and journalists' families strongly dispute it.

Claims supporting a "majority" figure:

Several Israeli-linked studies and the IDF itself have made this claim. A study by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center examined the identities of 266 individuals identified as journalists or media workers killed in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and November 30, 2025, finding 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.

More recently, 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 (PIJ), and other terrorist organizations. According to that IDF disclosure, 118 of those named were affiliated with Hamas' military wing and 49 with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while two allegedly belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees and one to the Mujahideen Brigades, with 17 having participated in the October 7, 2023 attack.

A separate audit by the advocacy group HonestReporting of the Committee to Protect Journalists' own database found that CPJ maintains a database of 209 Gazan media workers killed during the war, but a review indicates that 120 of the individuals, or 57%, had terrorist ties.

Important caveats and disputes:

However, these figures come almost entirely from Israeli government and Israel-aligned sources, and are strongly contested. The IDF itself acknowledged that the journalists' identities and terrorist affiliations were verified using documentation released by the terrorist organizations themselves and materials recovered by Israeli troops during Gaza operations — meaning the methodology relies heavily on materials Israel itself selected and interpreted, often from Hamas's own "martyr" announcements, which can blur the line between genuine militant affiliation and posthumous political claims by Hamas.

Press freedom organizations dispute this characterization. The Reporters Without Borders Middle East desk director said of one such case that Israel's accusations "can in no way justify his murder, as they are based on documents that in no way constitute that the journalist had any affiliation" with Hamas's armed wing. Family members of journalists killed have also pushed back, with family members of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza having decried Tel Aviv's latest attempt to recast their slain relatives as militants.

Independent monitors give different overall casualty figures too — Reporters Without Borders said nearly 220 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, making Israel the deadliest actor for journalists for three consecutive years — without endorsing the "majority were terrorists" framing.

There have also been institutional reversals on individual cases that complicate the broader claim: the BBC is reviewing the inclusion of 53 terrorists on a list published by BBC Arabic of "journalists" killed in Gaza, suggesting some mislabeling did occur, even as other organizations have resisted blanket terrorist designations.

Bottom line: Israeli military and allied research groups claim that roughly 54–60% of Gazan journalists killed were linked to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or other armed factions, based on documents including materials from the terror groups' own propaganda and captured intelligence. This is a genuinely disputed and politically charged claim — press freedom groups, journalists' families, and much of the international press have challenged both the methodology and conclusions, arguing that Israel has provided insufficient independent verification and that "affiliation" claims sometimes rest on posthumous Hamas "martyr" notices rather than proof of active combat roles. There is no independent, non-governmental consensus confirming the majority claim.