For nearly three years, one of the most damaging accusations leveled against Israel has been that it deliberately targets journalists in Gaza. Every death added another name to international lists, another condemnation, another headline and another statistic suggesting Israel was waging war not merely against Hamas but against those attempting to expose what was happening.
Then came October 1.
The Israel Defense Forces released what it calls “The Press Files,” identifying 170 Palestinians who were presented as journalists or media workers but who, according to Israeli military intelligence, were also members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or other terrorist organizations.
This wasn’t simply a list of people accused of sympathizing with Hamas. The IDF published names, photographs, military identification numbers, positions within terrorist organizations and, in many cases, captured personnel documents.
According to the IDF investigation, 118 served in Hamas’s military wing and 49 in Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Two others were affiliated with the Popular Resistance Committees and one with the Mujahideen Brigades. Seventeen allegedly participated in the October 7 massacre itself.
Their reported military jobs are even more disturbing.
Snipers. Squad commanders. Engineers. Trainers. Intelligence operatives. Propaganda personnel.
That combination should force a serious reassessment of how information from Gaza has been presented to the world.
The Camera And The Kalashnikov
Perhaps no image summarizes the problem better than that of Amro Abu Odeh.
Abu Odeh reportedly provided photography to Reuters and Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. Yet according to the IDF, he was also a commander in a photography unit connected to Hamas’s military wing. In photographs highlighted with the investigation, the same man associated with a camera is also shown carrying a Kalashnikov.
He was hardly an isolated case.
The IDF says individuals among the 170 worked for or contributed to international organizations including Reuters, CNN, BBC, AFP, Le Monde and ABC Australia. Others worked for Palestinian and Arab media organizations.
One individual identified by the IDF, Mohammed al-Kuwaifi, reportedly worked for Shehab News Agency while serving as a squad commander in an engineering platoon of Hamas’s Gaza Brigade. The IDF published a military ID number and a captured Hamas document identifying his role.
Another, Hamza al-Dahdouh, worked for Al Jazeera. The IDF identifies him as a Palestinian Islamic Jihad military operative and published a document recovered in Gaza listing personnel in PIJ’s electronic engineering unit.
This is the central scandal.
A press vest identifies someone’s profession. It does not tell us what else that person may be doing when the camera is turned off.
October 7 Changes Everything
The most troubling cases are the 17 people the IDF says participated in the October 7 attack itself.
That crosses a line far beyond accusations of biased journalism.
October 7 was not a protest or a news event that journalists merely rushed to cover. Hamas-led terrorists crossed Israel’s border, murdered civilians and soldiers, burned communities and carried hostages back into Gaza.
If individuals participating in that attack were subsequently counted internationally among journalists killed during the war, then some of the statistics repeatedly used to portray Israel as deliberately killing journalists require another look.
The distinction between journalist and combatant is not academic.
Journalists receive special protection because their job is to observe war, not participate in it.
The moment someone becomes an operative of an armed organization, commands fighters, serves as a sniper or participates in a terrorist assault, a camera cannot magically erase those activities.
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