The year 2025 will be remembered as one of the darkest chapters for journalism in modern history. Across continents, reporters, photographers, camera operators, and media workers were hunted, silenced, imprisoned, and killed simply for doing their jobs. The figures are staggering, but behind every number lies a human life cut short and a truth left untold.
According to the International Federation of Journalists’ final Killed List released on December 31, 128 journalists and media workers lost their lives in 2025, including 10 women. Even when accounting for nine accidental deaths, the scale of violence is undeniable.
The update, which confirmed 17 additional cases after December 10, underscores not only how lethal the year has been, but also how normalised impunity has become. Governments and armed actors continue to fail to protect those whose role is to bear witness.
Nowhere is this failure more catastrophic than in the Middle East and particularly in Palestine, which recorded a grim 74 deaths, accounting for 58% of all journalists killed worldwide. At the centre of this horror is Palestine, where 56 journalists were killed, most of them in Gaza.
What is unfolding there is not collateral damage; it is a systematic assault on journalism. Israel, acting with complete disregard for international law, has increasingly behaved as a lawless state when it comes to Palestinians and Palestinian journalists. Media workers have been bombed in clearly marked locations, killed in their homes with their families, and targeted in areas known to shelter journalists. The killing of Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif on August 10, along with five other journalists, when a tent housing media workers was struck near Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, stands as one of the most emblematic crimes of the year. It sent a chilling message: no press vest, no hospital no international outrage offers protection.
The repression does not end with death. Across the Middle East, 74 journalists are currently imprisoned, including 41 Palestinian journalists detained by Israel, alongside dozens in other Arab states. Detention, intimidation, and fear have become standard tools to crush independent reporting.
Beyond Palestine, journalists in Yemen also paid an unbearable price, with 13 killed, including in what is considered one of the worst attacks on media offices ever recorded, the bombing of the 26 September Newspaper. Syria and Iran added to the toll, with journalists killed explicitly because of their work. These are not isolated incidents; they reflect a regional climate where truth is treated as an enemy. An attack on journalists is an attack on the public’s right to know. When reporters are murdered, detained, or terrorised, societies are left blind, unable to see corruption, war crimes, or abuse of power. The blood spilled in 2025 is not only that of journalists; it is the blood of freedom of expression itself.
