An anti-Israel demonstrator holds a placard at a rally in front of the New York Times building following the death of Hossam Shabat, a Palestinian journalist who was affiliated with the Hamas terrorist organization. Photo: Jimin Kim / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect

The claim that Israel is “killing journalists” has become a staple of newspaper opinion pages, campus protests, and claims by advocacy groups.

For example, on March 24, 2025, a group called the Committee to Protect Journalists — whose board of directors includes Lydia Polgreen, Diane Brayton, and Geraldine Fabrikant Mertz of the New York Times — issued a statement headlined, “CPJ denounces Israel’s killing of 2 more Gaza journalists in return to war.”

“CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said CPJ’s Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour, whose killings may have been targeted. Journalists are civilians and it is illegal to attack them in a war zone.”

The New York Times news coverage was basically indistinguishable from the Committee to Protect Journalists’ press release. A Times news article credited to Hiba Yazbek and Bilal Shbair, with reporting contributed from Istanbul by Iyad Abuheweila, says, “On Monday, Al Jazeera reported that Hussam Shabat, a journalist who contributed to its coverage of the war, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in northern Gaza. At least 208 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the Gaza government press office.”

The Times dispatch goes on: “Videos circulating online and verified by the New York Times show the apparently lifeless bodies of Mr. Shabat and two other men, as well as a donkey that had been pulling a cart, on a dusty road in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza. Next to them is a car pocked with what appear to be bullet or shrapnel holes, with an Al Jazeera emblem and the letters ‘TV’ on the windshield. A man shouts Mr. Shabat’s name and shakes his body, trying to get a response, while others carry away a person whose condition is unclear.”

What the Times news article entirely omits is that the Israel Defense Forces identifies Shabat as a Hamas terrorist. “Don’t let the press vest confuse you, Hossam was a terrorist,” the IDF said in a social media post. “Here is a document published in October 2024 proving Hossam’s affiliation with Hamas,” the message notes, along with a post listing him as having completed military training and being a member of a Hamas company.

A social media account of Yaakov Harshkovitz posted, “This terrorist, Hossam Shabat, from Hamas Beit Hanoun Battalion, who was also employed as a Journalist for Al-Jazeera, tried to kill me with a sniper rifle, at least twice. He was one of the most dangerous terrorists in our area, he was a professional sniper, he took part of terror missions against Israel.”

The Times news article reporting Shabat’s death is riddled with plenty of other problems, too. It doesn’t mention that Al Jazeera is controlled by the government of Qatar, or that, according to an interview, Shabat defined his role as a “journalist” as “documenting the occupation’s crimes.” The Committee to Protect Journalists also gets funding from Al Jazeera — that is, the Qatari government, according to its annual report. What are three New York Times people doing on the board of a charity that raises money from Qatar to issue press releases denouncing Israel when Israel kills a Hamas terrorist?

The Times article features interviews with Gazans about their suffering. But it includes no interviews or questions about whether the Gazans blame Hamas for not releasing the Israeli and foreign hostages or for not surrendering. If the Times has full unfettered access to Gazans for newsgathering purposes, why not ask them a full and complete portfolio of questions, rather than just, essentially, “please describe your suffering in a way that makes you look sympathetic so Israel can be blamed?” The answer is surely that, as the Times Jerusalem bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley, once acknowledged to readers, “Hamas restricts journalists in Gaza.”

The Times double standard is also on display in the article. It reports, “Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday that 61 people were killed in Israeli bombardments over the past day, a day after it said the death toll in the enclave had surpassed 50,000 since the war began almost 18 months ago. The ministry’s figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.” Then it reports, “The Israeli military said in a statement on Sunday that its troops had killed several fighters in Tal al-Sultan and raided a site it said was used as a Hamas command and control center. It did not provide evidence of its claims, which could not be independently verified.”

Only the Israelis, not the Gazans, get the “did not provide evidence of its claims, which could not be independently verified” treatment. And the health ministry is referred to simply as the health ministry, not the health ministry controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization.

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.