Killed for reporting on the war

The year 2025 for journalism closes with a dramatic toll: 67 journalists killed whilstdoing their work. A number that alone would be enough to describe the fragility of press freedom around the world, but it becomes even more alarming when one considers where these reporters fell. Nearly half died in the Gaza Strip, turned into the global epicentre of danger for those who inform. This is recounted in the latest report by Reporters Without Borders.

Gaza, where telling becomes impossible

What makes Gaza the deadliest place for the press is the combination of siege, constant shelling, absence of safe routes, inability to distinguish civilian from military zones, and total lack of real protections for those who document. Adding to this already dramatic picture is the broader figure coming from international organisations: since October 7, 2023, more than 220 journalists have been killed in the Strip.

It is a figure that photographs an unprecedented context: no contemporary conflict has produced a similar number of casualties amongst information workers. Here the vest marked “PRESS” is not a protection: it is a target.

The other wars that engulf reporters

But it is not just in Gaza that people die. The other 2025 cases are spread across forgotten conflicts, political crises, and regimes that consider the independent press a nuisance to be eliminated. In many areas of chronic instability, reporters’ work is made impossible by local militias, out-of-control security apparatuses or criminal groups that fear the light of information.

In some incidents, the victims were involved in attacks or fighting; in others, the dynamics suggest targeted executions: getting the teller out of the way seems to be considered a way of passing a piloted version of reality.

An increasingly exposed profession

The picture that emerges is one of an increasingly vulnerable category. Helmets, vests, international accreditation: useful but insufficient tools in wars where the rules are skipped and the distinction between civilian and combatant is ignored.

Even more exposed are local journalists and freelancers, often with few resources, no legal support and no protections. It is the segment that pays the highest price.

Behind every name is a broken story, but also a story that will never be told again. When a journalist dies, we don’t just lose a voice: we lose a levee to arbitrariness, a fragment of truth, a piece of reality that is in danger of fading into obscurity.