The Gaza Project

*ARTICLE - From Slander to Exile: Photographer Yasser Qudih Targeted for Doing His Job // Link: https://forbiddenstories.org/from-slander-to-exile-photographer-yasser-qudih-targeted-for-doing-his-job/

By Cécile Andrzejewski

Additional reporting by Sofía Álvarez Jurado (Forbidden Stories), Hoda Osman (ARIJ) and Miguel Ramalho (Bellingcat)

On October 7, 2023, Gazan photographer Yasser Qudih photographed Hamas’ attack on Israel, prompting a pro-Israeli NGO to suspect him of having been alerted by the Islamist group ahead of time. Shortly after, his house was bombed, killing eight members of his family and leaving him racked with guilt. Forbidden Stories and its partners revisited the subsequent smear campaign that drove Qudih into exile and unemployment.

Key findings
The pro-Israeli NGO HonestReporting suspects photographer Yasser Qudih of “coordinating” with Hamas to cover the October 7 attacks
Our analysis shows that Qudih entered Israel more than two hours after the attacks as a photographer
HonestReporting published multiple articles attacking the photojournalist, who had to flee Gaza and stop reporting

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I just did my job. That’s all. Maybe that strike wasn’t meant for me. We don’t know. But unfortunately, to this day, I can’t forget what happened. The people who came to take shelter with me, under my protection, died in my house.”

Almost a year and a half after the air strikes that targeted his home and killed eight members of his family, including three children, Gazan photojournalist Yasser Qudih continues to grapple with feelings of guilt.

“My wife tells me that the death of our family is our fault, that maybe they died because of us,” he said. “But I can’t go on telling myself that I’m responsible for their deaths.” Qudih explained that four strikes hit the vicinity of his house with the deadliest blow coming from a strike that exploded in an adjacent plot of land.

Journalists are “no different than terrorists,” according to an Israeli minister

What is it about Qudih’s photos that make him feel “guilty”? A freelance photographer working for various media outlets since 2005, Qudih was one of the first Gazan journalists to cover Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. This is precisely what made him the target of a smear campaign organized by the Israeli organization HonestReporting. The purported mission of this NGO, founded in 2000 during the second intifada, is to “respond to inaccuracies and prejudices” in articles about Israel.

In a piece published on November 8, 2023, four days before the deadly strike on Qudih’s home, HonestReporting wrote, “On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies, whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions. What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas?”

For HonestReporting, the mere presence of journalists at the scene of the attack seemed to imply that they had been informed ahead of time of Hamas’s plans. Qudih was one of six media workers targeted by the NGO for photos published by Reuters.

The title of one of HonestReporting’s articles referencing Yasser Qudih: “Broken borders: AP & Reuters pictures of Hamas atrocities raise ethical questions.” (Credit: Screenshot - Forbidden Stories)

HonestReporting offered no evidence to support its speculations. “Reuters has published pictures from two photojournalists who also happened to be at the border just in time for Hamas’ infiltration: Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa and Yasser Qudih,” the article continued. “They both took pictures of a burning Israeli tank on the Israeli side of the border.”

The baselessness of HonestReporting’s suggestions did not stop Israel’s highest authorities from echoing them on the social network X the very next day. Benny Gantz, then a minister in the war cabinet, wrote: “Journalists who knew about the massacre and still chose to stand idly by while children were slaughtered are no different from terrorists and should be treated as such.”

Does this statement by a senior minister reflect the views of the Israeli government? Was it concerted? When contacted on these points by Forbidden Stories, the Israeli prime minister's office did not respond to our questions.

The official X account for the State of Israel asserted that the, “[Associated] Press, CNN, the New York Times and Reuters had journalists embedded with Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacre,” before later deleting the post. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also weighed in, describing the journalists as “accomplices in crimes against humanity.” For its part, the Reuters news agency issued a statement categorically denying any “prior knowledge of the attack or that we embedded journalists with Hamas on October 7.”

On November 10, two days after the article was published, Gil Hoffman, HonestReporting's executive director and former journalist, said he was “relieved” by the response from the various news agencies. “We asked questions. We didn’t give answers,” Hoffman said. He also backtracked on the topic of Reuters, explaining “that his organization did not claim to know that the press groups had prior knowledge of the Hamas attack.”

When Forbidden Stories reached out to HonestReporting, the NGO responded publicly on X: “Whether they knew about the attack in advance, they were part of Hamas' media plan and were allowed and encouraged to document the atrocities for the terror org,” they wrote. “Journalists always try to be first on the scene. But in this case, that should raise some serious questions.”

A journalist doing his job

Though HonestReporting’s speculations have no basis, they had serious consequences for Qudih. Interviewed for the second installment of the Gaza Project, the photojournalist began by retracing his professional career.

“I’ve worked with all the international magazines and newspapers without exception,” he said. “I worked in Gaza, I covered the World Cup in Qatar in 2022, and I worked in Egypt during the revolution and transition period.”

In May 2018, Qudih was seriously wounded by an Israeli sniper fire while wearing a press vest during the “Great March of Return,” a weekly protest movement calling for the return of Palestinian refugees and an end to the Israeli blockade on Gaza. His convalescence lasted several months.

On October 7, 2023, the day of Hamas’ terror attack on Israel, Qudih was awakened by noise and flashes of light, which he initially mistook for a thunderstorm. “My house is near the border, six kilometres away,” he said. “But I didn’t go there directly. I went to the highest part of Khan Yunis, to a restaurant called Titanic,” to get a panoramic view.”

There, Qudih took his first photograph at 6:52 a.m., according to the image's metadata. This was confirmed by an analysis from our partner Bellingcat, which used the solar azimuth when the photo was taken to verify its location and time of capture, approximately 20 minutes after the attack began.

“Every time something happens, we climb to the top of this spot because it offers Internet access and a high vantage point for photographing explosions and bombings,” said Qudih.

One of Yassr Qudih's photos published on Reuters’ website in October 2023 as part of the series, “In pictures: Seven days in Israel and Gaza” (Credit: Screenshot - Forbidden Stories)

That day, Qudih also sent his images to the Chinese agency Xinhua, but quickly decided to return home. According to his account, he warned his contact at Xinhua of how dangerous the situation was.

“At the border, I discovered [Hamas was kidnapping] Israelis and Thai workers,” Qudih said. “I was scared, honestly. I stopped at the border, where the tanks were on fire. I took a few photos and left.” Even now, Qudih “blames himself” for venturing out that day. But, he added, “journalists [are] curious by nature. They like to see and know everything.”

“When the allegations [about me] started appearing a month later, I was terrified,” said Qudih. “The campaign was fierce.”
Four days after HonestReporting’s article, Qudih’s neighborhood, then house - where many of his relatives were taking shelter - were hit by deadly strikes. Eight were killed, including three children.

Reuters, which had published Qudih’s photos, emphasized the proximity of the two events in a dispatch. “Deadly strikes hit the Gaza home of a news photographer days after an Israeli media advocacy group questioned his coverage of Hamas' October 7 attack, prompting death threats against him on social media,” it read. Reuters admitted, however, that it “could not verify who was responsible for the strikes, why Qudih’s home in southern Gaza was targeted or whether the strikes were linked to HonestReporting’s November 8 report.”

For its part, HonestReporting didn’t waver. “We stand behind everything we've written before & since Oct. 7, 2023,” they wrote on X. “Do we believe an airstrike on Qudih's home was connected to our story? No. Because Israel does not target journalists for being bona fide journalists.”

Yasser Qudih at the Pulitzer Prize ceremony in New York on October 25, 2024 (Credit: Yasser Fathi Qudih’s Facebook page)

Six months later, in May 2024, Reuters won a Pulitzer Prize in the “Breaking News Photography” category, and Qudih was among the photographers rewarded for their coverage of the October 7 attack. Once again, he became the subject of an HonestReporting article, even though in November 2023, the organization’s executive director stated that he had no problem with the two freelance photojournalists—including Qudih—from whom Reuters had acquired images.

The title of another HonestReporting article that references Yasser Qudih: “Photographer who infiltrated Israel on Oct. 7 honored in Reuters’ Pulitzer win” (Credit: Screenshot - Forbidden Stories)

Much like before, HonestReporting accused Qudih of having been at the scene of the attack “early enough that morning to capture an image of a still-smoldering Israeli tank after he had illegally crossed into the Jewish state.” The photo was taken at 8:30 a.m. that day—two hours after the attack began—according to its metadata, which we were able to verify.

HonestReporting also criticized another photo taken on the Israeli side of the border, a few minutes before the previous one, depicting a man with a gun. He has his back turned to the camera, a detail the NGO used to suggest that Qudih “at least had their tacit approval to document and disseminate their actions.”

An unemployed Pulitzer Prize winner

Finally, in December 2024, HonestReporting published a photo on X showing the journalist receiving another award, this time in 2021. The post was accompanied by the caption, “Yasser Qudih: A freelance photographer who has been honoured by Hamas as a ‘working partner.’” The ceremony in question was actually an annual celebration organized by the Gazan government’s media office, which is run by Hamas, the enclave’s ruling party. This office was responsible for producing press releases and, most importantly, issuing work permits to journalists.

“Any journalist in Gaza has to go through this office to work. Even foreign journalists entering Gaza need to obtain permits there,” explained a Gazan journalist who requested anonymity. Accepting this authorization “doesn’t mean you’re working with them or supporting Hamas or anything else.”

A photo of Yasser Qudih posted on February 24, 2025, with the caption, “It’s just life, nothing more.” (Credit: Yasser Fathi Qudih’s Facebook profile)

“These accusations have affected me and my colleagues,” said Qudih. “[News agencies] stopped giving us work. In February 2024, Reuters warned me that they would no longer be able to accept my photos due to how violent the campaign against them was.”

On the HonestReporting website, visitors can write directly to Reuters’ managers to alert them to the “unethical and unprofessional behaviour” of some of their employees, including Qudih, who is mentioned by name. The photojournalist admits he “lost hope” at the time. “It was like admitting I’d done something wrong,” he said.

After two months of hell, Qudih managed to leave Gaza with his wife and children with the approval of the Israeli authorities. “I had reached such a stage of exhaustion and weakness [after the bombing of my house],” he said. “My mother told me that if I didn't feel comfortable, I could leave. I began to doubt myself, thinking that my photos could have caused the death of my whole family. That’s why I left.”

Even after spending nine months in Egypt, Qudih still hasn’t been able to practice his craft for “a single minute.”“My only wish is to start taking photos again,” he said. “I want to close my eyes, open them, and find myself back in Gaza.”

*ARTICLE - No Safe Zones: How Fadi Al-Wahidi Got Shot in the Neck While Wearing a Press Vest / LINK: https://forbiddenstories.org/en-fadi-al-wahidi-shot-press-gaza/

By Sofía Álvarez Jurado

March 27, 2025

Additional reporting by:
Anouk Aflalo Doré, Frédéric Métézeau, Mariana Abreu, Youssr Youssef, Samer Shalabi (Forbidden Stories), Farah Jallad, Hoda Osman, Zarifa Abou Qoura (ARIJ), Carlos Gonzales (Bellingcat), Luisa Hommerich, Nicolás Pablo Grone, Yassin Musharbash (Die Zeit)

On October 9, 2024, Fadi Al-Wahidi was reporting alongside a crew of journalists from Al Jazeera, Al Araby TV, and others, in the Al Saftawi area near Jabalia, when what they claim was an “Israeli quadcopter” initiated a chase that ended with Al-Wahidi being shot in the neck. Forbidden Stories and its partners reconstructed the event that has paralyzed both of his legs.

Key findings
Footage obtained exclusively by the Gaza Project shows Al-Wahidi running away from what, according to his own testimony and that of eyewitnesses, were the first shots targeting the crew.
Medical reports from hospitals in Gaza and Egypt describe a “severe spinal injury” caused by a bullet that penetrated his neck. A forensic expert’s analysis indicates the shot was fired from an elevated position.
Al-Wahidi was reporting from an area that was not included among the “evacuation zones” designated by the Israeli army for that day.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense refused multiple requests to evacuate Al-Wahidi and his mother, who had to wait for 122 days to leave Gaza. They did not respond to our specific questions about this case.

On January 2, 2025, Fadi Al-Wahidi would have celebrated his 25th birthday in the Gaza Strip, surrounded by family, friends, and colleagues like Anas Al-Sharif of Al Jazeera. He would likely have spent the day as he had for the past year – tirelessly documenting the destruction of his hometown, Jabalia.

All of this might have happened had he not been shot in the neck during an assignment in early October, while clearly identified as a journalist. Following the attack, both of his legs remain paralyzed.

“It was direct shooting,” he told Forbidden Stories in an interview from his hospital bed in Gaza during which he lost consciousness four times.

In lieu of a celebration with his friends and colleagues, this message was published on his Instagram account to mark his birthday: “I never imagined that I would welcome a new year of my life ‘paralyzed,’ unable to stand on my own feet … 85 days have passed- each day as long as a thousand years.”

The morning of October 8, 2024, the world held its breath watching Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the government and people of Lebanon. In English, he vowed that the country would face “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza” if they did not rise up against Hezbollah.

The day after, a crew of journalists, including Al-Wahidi and Al-Sharif, was on the ground reporting on the fifth consecutive day of the Israeli 162nd Division’s bombardment and ground offensive in Jabalia.

The reporters made their way to Al Saftawi zone, “knowing that it was a safe area, and that people were fleeing from the northern Gaza Strip to the west of Gaza City,” Al-Wahidi said. They wanted to report on the displacement of civilians in this area.

A day prior to the attack, the Israeli Army had published a map on social media announcing that it was “conducting forceful operation in Jabalia” and asking residents to evacuate.

The color-coded map indicated which areas were facing intense fire and were to be evacuated (shown in red in the image below, respecting the original map’s color codes).

By using geolocation tools, Forbidden Stories and its partners confirmed that Al-Wahidi and the group of journalists, while reporting on the army’s advance near the border, were still located in an area that was not designated as an “evacuation” zone at the moment of the attack (Their location is highlighted in the map above. It can be seen included among the yellow areas.)

Chronology of an attack: The events of October 9 in Northern Gaza
Al-Wahidi’s last Instagram post before he was attacked was published by noon Palestinian time. Filmed in Jabalia’s Abu Sharkh roundabout, it shows civilians running away among the rubble, with the sound of constant gunfire in the background.

“From the closest point of the occupation army’s incursion, the situation is dire,” reads the caption.

Roughly ten minutes later, Al-Sharif posted a video on Twitter reflecting a very similar situation. “Just moments ago, while conducting our journalistic duties, we came under fire from Israeli drones. Additionally, anyone attempting to leave the camp was targeted,” he wrote.

In the afternoon, the team of journalists recall having headed to Al Saftawi, the neighborhood that separates Gaza City from Northern Gaza (Jabalia).

One of the journalists of this group was Islam Bader of Al Araby TV.

When asked whether they were visibly identified as journalists, Bader told Forbidden Stories and its partners that the majority of them were wearing press jackets at the moment. This is evident in numerous social media posts shared by the crew, where they documented their work in near real-time.

In all the videos released that day, Al-Wahidi is consistently seen wearing a white-and-blue striped shirt with a press vest over it—including in the footage captured just before the attack and immediately after, as he lies on the ground.

Additionally, footage from Al Araby and Al Jazeera that circulated later show how journalistic equipment (including large TV antennas) was visibly set around the group.

Just moments before 4:53 p.m. (according to metadata from a recovered video documenting the immediate aftermath of the attack), Al-Wahidi recorded one last video, which never made it onto his social media.

In the footage, viewers witness events from the journalist’s perspective, as he and his colleagues appear to be running away from something that our consortium was unable to positively identify.

However, Al-Wahidi can be seen running for 16 seconds before the recording abruptly ends. At that moment, he was shot in the neck and collapsed.

Footage recorded by his colleagues in the immediate aftermath of the strike quickly spread across the internet.

In the video, Al-Wahidi lies motionless, his face pressed against the concrete. The word “PRESS” is clearly visible on his flak jacket.

On social media, users soon compared this moment to the aftermath of the attack that took the life of renowned journalist Shireen Abu Akleh of Al Jazeera, while on assignment in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, on May 11, 2022 [see 1, 2].

The medical report written at Al-Shifa Hospital, which our consortium accessed exclusively, reflects that Al-Wahidi was examined at 5:32 p.m. Palestinian time, and that he suffered a severe spinal injury when a projectile penetrated his neck, fracturing two vertebrae in his upper back and compressing his spinal cord, resulting in the paralysis of both legs.

Dr. Ramy Al-Sousy, who originally performed surgery on Al-Wahidi, described his injury as caused by a single bullet that entered the front of his neck above his press vest and exited through his back.

Jinan Khatib, a sworn forensic expert accredited by the Lebanese Ministry of Justice, analysed imagery of the wounds of Al-Wahidi and told our consortium that one could “reasonably conclude that the bullet was fired from a higher level in relation to the victim.”

“We Have Become Familiar With That Sound”
“Even now in my ears, the bullets are bouncing off the door next to me, into the walls next to me,” Al-Wahidi said from his hospital bed.

“I was filming to prepare a report for my colleague Anas Al-Sharif at that moment,” he told Forbidden Stories. “While we were here, we were surprised by a drone [that] appeared and fired directly at us.”

When asked about the precise moment that Al-Wahidi was attacked, Islam Bader was confident in his answer.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, it came from a quadcopter, because we were not within the direct line of fire [of the Israeli Army],” he said. “Why didn’t we document it? Because the quadcopter is a more deadly tool—no one dares to raise a camera, as you never know where it might strike next.”

“Throughout this war, we’ve become familiar with that sound, learning to distinguish it from everything else,” he said. Journalist Mohammed Shaheen, who was also present at the scene, said that the shots came from a drone. He said that drones “fire automatically, unlike a sniper, who shoots intermittently.”

Imam Badr, another journalist who witnessed the attack, recalled seeing “a surveillance drone belonging to the [Israeli] army, which hovered for about five minutes before disappearing. About two minutes later, intense gunfire erupted toward us. Fadi was injured during this.”

When asked about the potential use of sniper drones in Gaza, James Patton Rogers, a drone expert at Cornell University, told our consortium that “the technology exists and will likely be deployed by a nation-state—or even a non-state actor—in the future.” However, he emphasized that without combat footage, he could not confirm their use.

A 2017 article by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that weaponized drones were nearing operational trials with the Israeli Army at the time. It also noted that two trials were underway among ground forces, one of which involved an unmanned armed drone.

All eyewitnesses said that what attacked Al-Wahidi was a quadcopter or sniper drone. Our consortium was unable to determine whether the shot originated from a drone, a soldier, or another source.

A former Israeli officer who fought in Gaza told our consortium that “assuming someone saw a drone and then heard gunshots, it is safer to assume that there were two units, or two teams from the same unit, working in tandem: the drone that is watching and surveilling and something else shooting.”

A returning non-commissioned officer from the battlefield confirmed to Forbidden Stories the general use of this “dual method,” though he did not claim knowledge of this specific event.

The Israeli Army did not respond to our specific questions regarding the use of drones in Gaza or the case of Al-Wahidi. However, they said that they rejected “outright the allegation of a systemic attack on journalists,” and that they could not address “operational directives and regulations as they are classified.”

Regarding individuals, they maintain that their forces “only strike members of organized armed groups and individuals directly participating in hostilities,” and that they did not “deliberately target journalists as such.”

In May 2024, The France 24 Observers (members of our consortium) asked the Israeli Army if they could confirm the use of “sniper drones in Gaza, quadcopters or mini drones equipped with light firearms,” to which they replied “Unfortunately, this is not something we can discuss.”

An impossible evacuation: 122 Days of Waiting and a Refusal for “Security Reasons”
After the attack, Al-Wahidi was transferred between different Gazan hospitals at least three times, due to severe shortages of medical supplies and the lack of necessary treatment.

By his side through it all is his mother, Hiba Al-Wahidi, who has refused to be parted from him.

“We were originally displaced from the north to western Gaza under the most difficult conditions, as I was sick as well, so my treatment was not available,” she told Forbidden Stories.

On November 25, 2024, UN human rights experts Irene Khan, Francesca Albanese and Tlaleng Mofokeng called for the urgent medical evacuation of Al-Wahidi, highlighting that “Israel has an obligation under international law to facilitate that right.”

Multiple requests were submitted by different hospitals and organizations for Al-Wahidi’s evacuation, but all of them were denied by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) – the Israeli Ministry of Defense unit responsible for coordination between Israel and Gaza.

Fadi’s request was supported by Tel Aviv-based Israeli human rights organization Gisha (Hebrew for “access” or “approach”), which uses “legal and public advocacy to promote the right to freedom of movement, mainly for residents of Gaza”, according to its executive director, Tania Hary.

On December 19, 2024, they submitted an urgent request to the Israeli authorities, highlighting that if they didn’t “arrange the departure of [their] client and his mother as soon as possible, you will cause serious damage”

They did not get a reply until almost a month later, on January 13, 2025. In it, COGAT denied the request, arguing that Al-Wahidi’s evacuation was blocked for security reasons, adding no further explanation.

But on January 15, 2025, after the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Al-Sharif posted a video on social media in which he and other colleagues called Al-Wahidi with good news. In the video, Al-Wahidi can be seen smiling and shaking his hand, before being interrupted by a grimace of pain.

“You will travel to receive treatment. In a few days, you will be fine,” his colleagues said to him “The coverage continues.”

Eventually, 20 days after the ceasefire (which came into effect on January 19, 2025), and 122 days after he was attacked, Al-Wahidi was evacuated to Egypt.

On February 8, he was transferred in an ambulance to a Cairo hospital through Rafah, with the help of FAJR Scientific.

COGAT did not respond to our inquiries regarding what had changed in this time to prompt their reversal on allowing Al-Wahidi and his family to evacuate Gaza.

In another conversation from his new hospital room in Cairo, Al-Wahidi complained to our consortium about the dramatic disruption in his life. “Since the injury, I can’t walk, I can’t do anything, and that’s been my reality. I hope that I can walk again, so I can go back to planning the future I was dreaming of.”

As of this writing, Al-Wahidi is traveling to Qatar to continue his medical treatment. In the last picture of him that our consortium received, he can be seen smiling.

“I was telling my mom, as soon as the war ends,” he said, “I want to get married, start a family, and live my best life. But Alhamdulillah.”

*ARTICLE - Endless horrors and relocations: In Jabalia, Fadi Al-Wahidi's unfinished reporting / LINK: https://forbiddenstories.org/en-journalist-fadi-al-wahidi-gaza-horror/

In October 2024, the Israeli army made its third incursion into the Jabalia refugee camp since the start of its war in Gaza—a particularly severe deployment of violence resulting in mass casualties, including the deaths of two Palestinian journalists and injuries to two others. One of them, Fadi Al-Wahidi, is now paralyzed. We continued his reporting, recounting the conditions in which Jabalia’s inhabitants survived and fled.

By Cécile Andrzejewski and Samer Shalabi
With Sami Boukhelifa (RFI)

Knee-high to a grasshopper, with a baby bottle in hand, the little blonde girl was covered in dust. She had that uncoordinated gait of a young child, walking barefoot across ground that tanks had churned into sand. All around her, adults slumped under the weight of the bags they carried on their backs or dragged behind them.

The air was filled with the incessant hum of an Israeli helicopter or drone, while a tank driving at full speed monitored the crowd. All were Palestinians from Jabalia, fleeing Israel’s invasion of the refugee camp—the third in a year—in October 2024. Located in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the camp has been home to thousands of refugees since 1948, who fled the towns and villages of southern Mandatory Palestine, which became Israeli territory following the massacres, expulsions and forced migrations that Palestinians call Nakba: the “catastrophe.”

“I documented our displacement,” said Khadija Hmaid, the 27-year-old journalist who filmed the little blonde girl. She described for Forbidden Stories “the heavily armed tanks, while we were only women and children, intimidated by their movements and weapons. [The Israeli soldiers] were even kind of mocking our suffering, clearly and explicitly.”

A massive military operation
One year after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered a cycle of bloody Israeli reprisals in Gaza, this new military deployment in Jabalia cost the lives of over 400 Palestinians, including two journalists. On the morning of October 6, 2024, Hassan Hamad, a 19-year-old freelance journalist and photographer working for Al Jazeera, was standing on the roof of his house inside the camp filming the army advance when an Israeli drone strike “shattered” him, in his father’s words, and ended his life. According to a Reporters Without Borders video, his remains fit in a simple shoebox.

However, the press paid the heaviest price on October 9. Mohammed Al-Tanani, a 26-year-old cameraman for the Al Aqsa TV channel, was also killed by an Israeli drone strike. Al Aqsa TV is financed and run by Hamas, the Islamist group in power in Gaza, and is classified as a “terrorist” organization by Israel, the United States, and the European Union. In the first installment of the Gaza Project, an Israeli army spokesman told our partners at ARIJ and the Guardian that there was “no difference” between working for this media outlet and belonging to the armed wing of Hamas. The Israeli army later contradicted the spokesman’s remarks, saying they “do not reflect official policy on the identification of terrorists and targeting procedures.”

When he was killed, Al-Tanani was covering Israeli operations in the refugee camp with his colleague Tamer Lubbad, who was wounded in the same strike. Another journalist, a cameraman for Al Jazeera named Fadi Al-Wahidi, was also seriously injured that day. Wearing a bulletproof vest marked “Press,” he was shot in the neck—one of the only unprotected areas of his body—leaving him in critical condition. He remains paralyzed to this day.

We continued the reporting that Al-Wahidi was unable to finish. Despite his suffering, he found the strength to talk to Forbidden Stories and our partners for the second installment of the Gaza Project from his hospital bed, which was then in Gaza.

“I was photographing and filming my colleague Anas Al-Sharif while reporting on the displacement of civilians. We were warned that there was indiscriminate and sudden shelling of homes, which led people to leave without taking their belongings,” Al-Wahidi described with difficulty.

To continue his unfinished reporting, we contacted Jabalia residents who fled the camp in the autumn of 2024—people whom Al-Wahidi would have met himself, camera on shoulder and microphone in hand, had he not been shot. We asked them to tell us about their departure. Traumatized, most of them chose to describe the brutal living conditions they experienced during the siege and their escape.

“The most violent invasion of Jabalia.”
Famine, filthy water, constant displacement and piles of corpses: just a glimpse into the apocalyptic reality of the camp. Abdul Karim Al-Zwaidi, 23, has been displaced more than 20 times. When he told us about Jabalia, Al-Zwaidi began by describing a massacre “in the middle of the camp” that left several hundred dead in October 2023. “By God, the horrors of the Day of Resurrection would perhaps be kinder to me and those who were present, given the severity of the scene and the targeting,” he said.

Then, Al-Zwaidi told us about “the second invasion” in May 2024, a horrifying ordeal that he remembers for “the abundance of blood that covered the streets.” Finally, he described the attack that began on October 6, 2024, as “the most violent invasion of Jabalia. Due to the intensity of the bombing and the targeting, people did not know where to go.” Like other civilians, the young journalist found refuge at Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last health facility still functioning in northern Gaza.

One day, Al-Zwaidi spotted his family in the wounded crowd. They had previously settled in another neighborhood of the camp, Tal Al-Zaatar. “My feelings were indescribable in those moments, seeing my family hurt. They only had minor injuries, praise be to God,” he said. Al-Zwaidi and his family became “the displaced among the displaced.” But in their wandering, food was in short supply. Al-Zwaidi, along with four other people, decided to return to Tal Al-Zaatar to find more.

“It was the most dangerous area, with tanks, drones… Almost anyone who moved was targeted or shot down,” he said. One of these drones opened fire on the group. Al-Zwaidi thought he would be killed, but it was one of his companions who was hit. “We were unable to treat him or do anything for him because of the intensity of the fire,” he recalled. He retrieved some flour and canned goods that had been stored away previously.

Shahida Al-Aloul, 70, also comes “from the depths of Tal Al-Zaatar.” He remembers that food “started to disappear completely. We could not find anything that had been preserved. Our suffering began because of the food shortage.” Al-Aloul remembers paying a large sum for one or two bags of flour near Kamal Adwan Hospital. In Gaza, the price of a kilo of flour doubled after October 7, 2023, and increased tenfold during severe shortages. “Sometimes we would send one of our children, one of our young people, because the elderly cannot run when there is shooting from a drone or artillery shelling,” said Al-Aloul.

Drinking undrinkable water
But the worst thing, according to Al-Aloul, was the lack of water. “The situation was very difficult, honestly, with food supplies dwindling, but the most important need was water,” he said. “Without water, it’s impossible to live.”

For a time, Al-Aloul and his family were able to get water from a well, “but when [the Israeli soldiers] saw us using it, they hit the power… [so] the water was cut off.” The young men in his family then went to fetch water from Kamal Adwan Hospital, but “whether it was pure or not was another story. As long as there was water we could drink, we drank it, no matter what,” said Al-Aloul.

Journalist Al-Zwaidi remembers Kamal Adwan Hospital’s water, too. “It came from a hose, the only one that covered the hospital and the surrounding area,” he said. “We were absolutely sure that this water was not fit for drinking.”

It was the lack of water that prompted Al-Aloul to leave. “At dawn, we decided to pack our bags,” he said. “We had a white flag. We went outside, and some neighbors saw us and came with us. We looked at the street directly behind us, which was [once] very nice. But when we went out, we found the whole area destroyed.”

An Israeli soldier from a tank instructed them to sit on the ground and separated the men from the women. Al-Aloul and the other men walked forward, one tank at the front of their line and another at the back. The soldiers told them to get “completely naked, of course,” before inspecting them and finally letting them go.

Hmaid, the journalist who filmed the little blonde girl’s departure from Jabalia, remained in the camp for a month after Israel began its third incursion, “living the siege, living the famine, living everything in detail.” She too “was drinking water that was completely undrinkable” during her last days there and experienced the disappearance of bread, fruit and vegetables. She recalls a 10-year-old child who was killed in front of her house. “He was in pieces. His mother screamed that she wanted to get his body because there were dogs and animals eating it right in front of her eyes. But every time the neighbors tried to retrieve the child’s body, they were targeted by drones and tanks.”

Even today, Hmaid wonders how she dared to film her departure “in the face of an arsenal of soldiers and tanks.” According to her, it was because she saw Jabalia transformed into a field of ruins: its houses reduced to rubble. “I was forcibly removed from the camp where I was born and had lived all my life,” Hmaid said. “I had nothing to lose.”

“I didn't even recognize where my house used to be.”
While Al-Wahidi was never able to document the violence of the siege and the scale of Israel’s military operation, RFI’s Jerusalem correspondent Sami Boukhelifa, a partner in the second installment of the Gaza Project, got a brief glimpse. Although Israel has prohibited all free and independent access to foreign press in Gaza since October 7, 2023, Boukhelifa was able to spend a few hours in Jabalia on January 13, 2025, under close surveillance by the Israeli army.

“My last visit was in May 2023,” he said. “When I returned in January 2025, what struck me, beyond the destruction, was that I no longer recognized anything. I no longer have any reference points. It’s unrecognizable.”

Boukhelifa describes the devastation as “everything’s frozen, there’s no life—only stray dogs.” He remembers seeing civilians’ clothes hung out to dry, covered in dust, and wondering, “How long have they been there?”

Since our interviews with the residents of Jabalia and the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which came into effect on January 19, 2025, Gazans have been able to return to the rubble of what were once their homes. They are still stunned by the scale of the destruction. “When I arrived in my neighborhood, I didn’t even recognize where my house used to be,” 22-year-old Hamza Othman, who also fled after the October siege, told our partners at +972 Magazine.

Hmaid and Al-Aloul have also made their way back to Jabalia. Hmaid has pitched a tent on the ruins of her house, and Al-Aloul lives with his son. Some of his family members sleep inside what’s still standing of their home, terrified at the thought of everything collapsing, while others sleep in a tent. Above all, Al-Aloul and his neighbors are busy rebuilding the well destroyed by the Israeli army.

There is no doubt that Al-Wahidi, currently in intensive care in a Qatari hospital, would have been there to film its restoration—a symbol of the resilience of Jabalia’s residents to start over despite being displaced from generation to generation. The Israeli army asked the inhabitants to evacuate their home once again on March 24, one week after the end of the ceasefire and a new major Israeli offensive on Gaza.

*ARTICLE - In Gaza, journalists filming with drones are in the Israeli army’s crosshairs / LINK: https://forbiddenstories.org/en-journalists-drones-israeli-army-gaza/

Of the few journalists who used drones to document the destruction wrought by the Israeli army, at least five have been killed or seriously wounded by deliberate strikes. The latest victim, Gaza Project contributor Mahmoud Isleem Al-Basos, was killed on March 15 while a ceasefire was still in effect. The testimonies of his surviving colleagues, corroborated by exchanges with Israeli military sources, demonstrate the absence of clear rules given to soldiers to distinguish between combatants and journalists filming with drones.

From Youssr Youssef, Magdalena Hervada (Forbidden Stories)
With Jake Godin (Bellingcat), Thomas Bordeaux (volunteer with Bellingcat’s Global Authentication Program), Hoda Osman (ARIJ). Additional reporting by: Mariana Abreu (Forbidden Stories), Zarifa Abou Qoura (ARIJ), Charlotte Maher (Bellingcat), Maria Retter (Paper Trail Media).

Key findings
Since October 2023, Palestinian journalists have been prevented from filming Gaza from the air.
In the absence of clear rules of engagement, some Israeli soldiers consider journalists filming with drones to be legitimate targets.
Using drone footage, we have created a 3D map of Gaza to show the extent of destruction in areas that journalists have been prevented from covering.
Journalist Mahmoud Isleem Al-Basos was killed by the Israeli army shortly after contributing the images featured in this map while using a drone to film the activities of an NGO during the ceasefire.

On February 15, 2024, images shared by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were seen around the world.

Four months after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, many people realized the scale of the disaster in the north of the Palestinian enclave: dozens of gutted and partially collapsed buildings in the Al-Shati refugee camp, forming a horizon of ruins.

Abdallah Al-Hajj filmed these images by drone. Nine days after they were posted online, on February 24, 2024, the Palestinian journalist was seriously injured by an Israeli military strike, which killed his 18-year-old nephew and a fisherman. At one point, believed to be dead, he lost both of his legs. He explained to Forbidden Stories that he had worked for UNRWA for over 10 years and is convinced that he was deliberately targeted by the Israeli army.

“Two days after I was targeted, my house was hit,” he said. “Why? (…) To destroy all the archives I had. I had a stock of archives accumulated over 20 years from the entire Gaza Strip. Imagine: of all my archives, only a few images remain.”

At the time, Al-Hajj was one of the few journalists left in the area after the Israeli army ordered inhabitants to evacuate to the south of Gaza. This was impossible for Al-Hajj, as he could not abandon his parents, who were too old for the arduous crossing. Some of the people he came across during his reporting had resorted to eating animal feed. “Every time they saw me with my drone and camera, they asked me to show the world what was happening in Gaza,” he explained in an interview with our partners at Le Monde. So he returned to Al-Shati.

“Filming with drones is essential to show the extent of the destruction.”
On the phone with Forbidden Stories, Al-Hajj listed the precautions he had taken in the field. He filmed with his drone during the one-week truce in November 2023. A few months later, during wartime, he filmed briefly, around “five minutes,” and “not very high, at around 50 meters” above his head, as his images confirm. Al-Hajj did not don his press vest during that period, fearing it would be tantamount to labelling himself as a military target. On the day he was injured in the drone strike, the Israeli army had apparently withdrawn from the area. According to an analysis of satellite images carried out by our partners at Bellingcat, the Israeli military vehicles closest to the Al-Shati area were around 2.5 kilometers from the refugee camp on February 8, 2024. A week later, the vehicles had disappeared from the images.

According to the Israeli press, the army carried out a two-week military operation in the Al-Shati area, which ended on February 15. Yet, on February 24, he would still be targeted.

“If I had been targeted in an area [where there were military operations], they would have said to me, ‘By God, Abdallah, it’s not reasonable to have used your drone [there].’ But here, I was in an area far from everything, near the sea, in an open space,” Al-Hajj said.

In a statement to Forbidden Stories last year, the Israeli army claimed to have “used an Israeli air force plane to eliminate” a “terrorist cell using a drone, posing an imminent threat to forces in the Shati area.”

“If I did belong to Hamas, I would never have been able to leave the Gaza Strip to receive medical treatment,” said Al-Hajj.

Faced with repeated attacks on the Palestinian press, some journalists, like Soliman Hijjy, chose to give up filming with his drone at the start of the war. One of the first journalists in Gaza to use a drone, he has tirelessly covered every conflict that has shaken the region, and his work has won him several international awards. But this time, bitterly, he told Forbidden Stories that in Gaza, “the Israeli army targets us without proof and invents pretexts. (…) It’s a way of preventing the story from being transmitted clearly.”

Like Hijjy and Al-Hajj, Shadi Al-Tabatibi spent hours filming Gaza before the war. Though he once enjoyed “capturing the beauty” of its historical sites, after October 7, he wanted to document the devastation. Now a refugee in Cairo, he provided extensive testimony as part of the Gaza Project. Al-Tabatibi vividly remembers the moment, on February 24, when he learned of the strike on his colleague and everything changed.

“That’s when I said to myself, ‘khalass’ [stop]. I’m going to stop filming,” he told us. And yet, as the young journalist pointed out, “filming with drones is essential to show the true extent of the destruction, which images from the ground cannot fully capture.”

The strike on Al-Hajj was far from the first aimed at the press. With great emotion, Al-Tabatibi recounted January 7, 2024, the day his friend Moustafa Thuraya, a freelance journalist working for several media outlets, including Al Jazeera and AFP, set off to film what would be his last report. “That day, Moustafa asked me to go with him, but I couldn’t because my wife had to take our daughter, born during the war, to be vaccinated,” he said. In missing the reporting trip, Al-Tabatibi escaped death for the first time.
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Journalist Motaz Azaiza is known worldwide for his images of Gaza, his shots revealing the extent of the damage caused by bombing. In late November 2023, he accused the Israeli army of taking control of his drone and moving it behind Israeli lines, an area inaccessible to him. After Moustafa Thuraya’s death in January 2024, and only a few days before his evacuation, Azaiza announced that he would no longer film by drone and apologized to his viewers for not being able to show the extent of the destruction. Several drone operators interviewed by Forbidden Stories, including Shadi Al-Tabatibi, also testified to losing control of their aircraft. The Israeli army did not respond to our questions on this subject.
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The day after the strike, which also killed journalist Hamza Al-Dahdouh, the Israeli army announced that it had “identified and struck a terrorist using a [drone] that posed an immediate threat to Israeli soldiers.” They even published what they presented as evidence linking Thuraya to Hamas and his colleague to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Contacted by partners of the Gaza Project, the Israeli army did not provide evidence to verify the authenticity of the documents they shared online. According to a Washington Post investigation, Thuraya had previously worked for about five years as a photographer for the Ministry of Religious Endowments of the Gaza government. Moreover, according to the same newspaper, analysis of the footage filmed by Thuraya and satellite images of the area showed no Israeli military presence or anything that might have made the journalists a threat to the army.

“I was afraid of being targeted in my own home.”
In the wake of these two strikes, filming with drones became difficult. The head of security for a major international media company told us that the decision to slow down the use of drones came in January 2024, before they stopped using them altogether in April. “I remember the moment when we said to ourselves, ‘now we’re stopping,’” he said. “It was a period so full of bad news that it became impossible to continue.”

But the killings continued, and Al-Tabatibi would lose more of his journalist friends using drones. He recalled discussions with his friends Ayman and Ibrahim Al-Gharbawi. The two brothers, aged 23 and 32—one of whom rejoiced in the October 7 attacks on social networks before becoming more critical of the Gaza authorities as the war progressed—had seen their photo studio, the fruit of “11 years of hard work,” destroyed by the bombardments. Despite this, they were not discouraged.

“Ibrahim told me he’d just bought a drone and wanted to start using it, and asked me to come and help him fly it,” said Al-Tabatibi. “I replied, ‘This really isn’t the right time. The situation is frightening.’”

Ibrahim and Ayman barely had time to try their hand at using the drone. On April 26, 2024, they were killed by an air strike either during or just after their filming, according to eyewitness accounts. They were not wearing press vests.

In May 2024, Al-Tabatibi finally set off for Cairo, leaving behind the ghosts of his friends who died in Gaza, as well as his two drones. He left one of them to his friend Mohammed Abu Saada, who was killed three months later in the bombing of his uncle’s house, along with three of his cousins. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), shortly before his death, Abu Saada had confided in his mother that the Israeli army was “deliberately killing anyone who owned a drone and used it for filming.”

Al-Tabatibi himself shared this fear. “I was afraid of being targeted in my own home, with my wife and children. I felt under constant threat,” he said.

“If we see someone flying a drone, the idea is to shoot, no questions asked.”
Michael Ofer-Ziv didn’t know the Al-Gharbawi brothers, Thuraya, Abu Saada, or any of the other Gazan journalists using drones. For the first two months of the war, he was at the Gaza border in the Israeli military center of Sde Teiman. His role was to verify that the Israeli army was not firing on its own soldiers. “At no point during this war did I receive an official document listing the rules of engagement. And this is a problem because it leaves a lot of space for interpretation,” he said.

With regard to drones, Ofer-Ziv said that “the general vibe” in the war room was clear. “If we saw anyone piloting a drone, and that drone is not ours, the idea was to shoot the drone and the person using it, no questions asked,” he told us. As for whether this applied to journalists, Ofer-Ziv said, “We didn’t talk about that.”

When asked about the rules of engagement given to its soldiers, the Israeli army said it referred to the law of armed conflict and refused to “comment on operational directives, as these are classified.” In June 2024, after a period of reflection, Ofer-Ziv officially refused to return to service, a decision that might lead to sanctions, including a prison sentence.

To further investigate the targeting of journalists with drones, our consortium got in touch with several high-ranking military officers. These individuals had left their posts and were, therefore, able to speak on the record. However, their analyses remain uncertain, confirming the lack of definitive rules noted by Ofer-Ziv. Reserve Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice Hirsch, who served for 19 years in the Israeli army’s legal corps, told our partners at Paper Trail Media that if a soldier spots a drone in a combat zone close to fighting forces, “I certainly wouldn’t presume any wrongdoing if that drone and its operators had been targeted (…) It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume they were part of an enemy force.” Neither Thuraya nor Al-Hajj was in a combat zone, and both were targeted after filming.

At least as early as 2020, the Israeli Ministry of Justice seemed perfectly aware of its responsibility to obey international laws on this matter. In fact, an internal memo from the Israeli Attorney General’s office, included in an email exchange obtained by the non-profit Distributed Denial of Secrets and consulted by Forbidden Stories, expressed concern about comments made by then Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman. He had reacted to the death of journalist Yasser Murtaja, killed while covering the Great March of Return in 2018, by saying, “I don’t know who he is, photographer or not, but anyone who flies a drone over soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces must understand that they are putting themselves in danger.”

According to the authors of the note, such a statement could imply that there would be “no distinction—indeed, no distinction at all—between journalists and activists who launch drones over Israeli armed forces.” The Ministry of Justice feared that these remarks could be used by a United Nations International Commission of Inquiry to “call into question Israel’s claims that it respects the laws of war.” The Ministry of Justice did not respond to Forbidden Stories’ questions about the internal memo.

Mahmoud Isleem Al-Basos: The latest journalist using a drone killed by the Israeli army
After the slew of journalist killings, Al-Tabatibi was left with only one close friend in Gaza who owned a drone. He had provided several images for the news agencies Reuters and Anadolu. In early March, during the ceasefire, Forbidden Stories asked Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos to film Gaza. The idea was to continue the work of journalists killed or injured during the war while enabling readers to visualize the unprecedented scale of destruction through detailed 3D maps.

On Saturday, March 15, Al-Basos was killed while on assignment for the Al-Khair Foundation in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza. According to his cousin, quoted by the CPJ, he was wearing his press vest and helmet. That morning, two Israeli air strikes killed at least six other people. Among them were aid workers and cameramen dispatched by Al-Khair. The NGO explained that it was using a drone to film the preparation of a Ramadan meal and the future extension of a refugee camp.

The Israeli army claimed that these strikes were aimed at “terrorists”—two of whom were operating a drone—and issued an error-filled list of names and photos. Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos is neither mentioned nor pictured in the list of “terrorists.” Instead, we found a name that resembles his, belonging to an individual described by the Israeli army as “a Hamas terrorist operating under journalistic cover.” Based on our research, the individual named by the army has no direct link with Al-Basos and was not killed in the strike. The military also denounced a connection between the drone used in Beit Lahia and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad without providing any evidence.

According to the journalists who knew him, as well as the Al-Khair Foundation and a Hamas representative we interviewed, our colleague Al-Basos had no affiliation with Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Our partners at Bellingcat have also geolocated the two strikes in Beit Lahia: the first around two kilometers from the Israeli border and an Israeli army post and the second around three kilometers away. Did the presence of a drone at this distance represent a threat to the Israeli army, as it claims?

When asked on two separate occasions to provide evidence supporting its accusations, the Israeli military stated that it would “not elaborate on the published statements.” More generally, they said it “categorically reject[ed] the allegation of a systemic attack on journalists.”

“Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing any credible evidence,” explained Doja Daoud from the CPJ. “We know that this practice endangers journalists and erodes public trust in Palestinian journalists reporting from Gaza.” The CPJ has just added Al-Basos to its list of journalists killed by the Israeli army and refers to his case as “murder.”

ARTICLE - Bird's eye view : documenting Gaza from its skies // LINK: https://forbiddenstories.org/en-keep-drones-journalists-work-alive-gaza-↗/

Journalists filming with drones have been regularly killed or injured in Israeli strikes. One of them, Mahmoud Isleem Al-Basos, collaborated on the Gaza Project. To continue his work, Forbidden Stories and its partners used his drone footage to create immersive 3D models of two locations in Gaza.

By Magdalena Hervada and Youssr Youssef.
Jake Godin (Bellingcat), Thomas Bordeaux (volunteer for Bellingcat’s Global Authentication project) et Hoda Osman (ARIJ) contributed to this article.

Journalists filming with drones have been regularly killed or injured in Israeli strikes. One of them, Mahmoud Isleem Al-Basos, collaborated on the Gaza Project. To continue his work, Forbidden Stories and its partners used his drone footage to create immersive 3D models of two locations in Gaza.

In 2023, Mahmoud Isleem Al-Basos had just obtained his bachelor’s degree in journalism and was planning to pursue a master’s. The war put an end to the young journalist’s plans. He was killed on March 15, 2025, at the age of 25, while covering a humanitarian mission in Beit Lahia.

His friend and mentor, Shadi Al-Tabatibi, never planned on teaching Al-Basos how to be a drone journalist.

“[Before the war], he contacted me on Instagram. He wanted to learn from me, but I didn’t have the time. Twice, he asked me where my next reports would be, and when I arrived, he’d already be there, waiting for me,” said Al-Tabatibi, now in exile in Cairo, to our partners at ARIJ. “I like ambitious people who are constantly looking to improve themselves. And I found that in Mahmoud.”

When Al-Tabatibi left to take refuge in the southern Gaza Strip, where he continued to film the war with his drone, he entrusted his protégé with his assignments in the north. This is how Al-Basos began providing images to international media outlets such as Reuters and Anadolu. A few weeks before his death—which the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) described as ‘murder’—he contributed footage to the Gaza Project. He used his drone to follow in the footsteps of other Palestinian journalists, who had been targeted while trying to capture their homeland from above.

Al-Basos provided a rare glimpse into the destruction of northern Gaza, in the Al-Shati and Jabalia refugee camps. Thanks to his images, Forbidden Stories and the online investigative group Bellingcat have produced two 3D models, that bring to life the work of journalists injured or killed while reporting in Gaza. Among them, now, is Mahmoud Isleem Al-Basos.

Gaza through the lens of photogrammetry
As he filmed during the ceasefire, Al-Basos followed a well-defined protocol. He flew his drone in successive circles, in order to capture photos of the camps from as many angles as possible. They were then assembled into an immersive 3D model of the Al-Shati and Jabalia camps. This technique, used for the first time at this scale in Gaza since the start of the war, is called photogrammetry.

“It’s really a unique way of looking at the terrain,” said geolocation and satellite imagery specialist for Bellingcat Jake Godin. “It’s simpler to look at Gaza from satellite imagery, because drone footage isn’t easy to come by. But when you can get it, it gives a much higher level of detail.”

“Satellite images can cover a large area, but they’re sometimes hard to interpret. Ground-level footage provides the best insight into what people on the ground are experiencing but does not offer an overall view of the area,” explains Thomas Bordeaux, a volunteer with Bellingcat’s Global Authentication Project and a specialist in 3D modeling. “These 3D models, like the drone images they are derived from, are so powerful because they do both.”

This approach has allowed us to provide unprecedented insight into the immense damage that eighteen months of war have inflicted on these once-vibrant districts.

Al-Shati

Abdallah Al-Hajj’s drone took off amid the rubble of Al-Shati camp on February 24, 2024, to film what little remained of the buildings along the coastline. The drone photographer used to go there to capture the beauty of Gaza’s northern shore before the war. On that day, he was targeted by a drone strike in which he lost both of his legs.

“There is a contrast there between the grey rubble and the bright blue sea. That’s what I wanted to show with these images,” Al-Hajj told us. He knew the risks associated with this report, but he felt a professional responsibility. “All the others were dead. I was the only one left who could do it,” he said.

After the attack on Al-Hajj, many of his peers gave up using their drones to get aerial views of the destruction. The ceasefire, which lasted between January 19 and March 18, 2025, opened a window of possibility. Through Al-Basos, Forbidden Stories and its partners were able to fly a drone over Al-Shati, so that the contrast Al-Hajj observed could be witnessed by all.

Jabalia

Before the war, Jabalia was the largest and most densely populated refugee camp in Gaza. Today, it is known for being one of the territory’s most devastated areas. Since October 7, 2023, it has suffered three Israeli military campaigns—the first in October 2023, the second in May 2024, and the third in October 2024. Evacuation orders have left hundreds of thousands displaced. The harsh conditions on the ground prevented most journalists from sharing what was happening. Fadi Al-Wahidi, a journalist for Al Jazeera, was paralyzed after being shot in the neck while covering the October 2024 incursion.

Some neighborhoods were completely leveled, and the people who remained inside the camp suffered from famine, a lack of drinking water, and the absence of healthcare centers. During the ceasefire, some residents returned to pitch their tents on the rubble. On March 24, 2025, a week after the resumption of Israeli bombardments, the army ordered a new evacuation of all Jabalia residents.

Gaza in ruins
The Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip have had a devastating impact on infrastructure. According to a UN press release, over 90% of housing units have been destroyed or damaged. The World Bank, the European Union, and the United Nations estimate that 95% of hospital infrastructure is no longer operational.

International media have widely documented the Israeli army’s desire for mass destruction. Bellingcat found online testimonies from soldiers who said they have become “addicted” to the explosions. A CNN report quoted former reservists, one of whom claimed that they were given daily quotas of bombs to detonate. The New York Times showed that Israel has dropped bombs of enormous caliber—nearly a ton each—on the area it designated as safe for civilians at least 200 times. These actions have claimed more than 50,000 victims according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, under Hamas administration.

Faced with the deadly human toll of this disaster, the United Nations Special Committee in charge of investigating Israeli practices stated in a report that these methods are “consistent with genocide.”

ARTICLE - “Where International Law Goes to Die”: Mechanisms Blocking Justice for Journalists and Civil Society // LINK: https://forbiddenstories.org/palestine-international-law-journalists-society/

Since 2001, Israeli fire has claimed the lives of nearly 200 journalists—170 of them since the war on Gaza began. Yet, even in the most extreme cases, Israel has failed to hold anyone accountable, according to the Comittee to Protect Journalists. In the second phase of the Gaza Project, Forbidden Stories and its partners found that Israel maneuvered to obstruct investigations into its military’s role in civilian deaths.

By Mariana Abreu
Additional reporting by Eloïse Layan and Magdalena Hervada (Forbidden Stories), Maria Retter (Paper Trail Media)

On December 15, 2023, cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa was filming the destruction of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, when he was hit by an Israeli drone.

Critically wounded, Abu Daqqa was refused medical aid for over five hours as ambulances were blocked from reaching him. Rescuers later found his body torn to pieces, his press vest leaning against a wall.

On May 11, 2022, Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh arrived at Balat Al Shuhada’ Street, in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, to cover an Israeli army raid on a nearby refugee camp. Despite her protective gear and a vest clearly marked “PRESS,” she was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper and declared dead soon after.

On April 6, 2018, Yasser Murtaja, a 30-year-old photographer from Gaza and co-founder of Ain Media Production Company, was covering a protest near the border while wearing a vest marked “PRESS”, when, shortly after noon, he too was shot by an Israeli sniper. He was pronounced dead 12 hours later.

In life, Yasser, Shireen, and Samer shared a homeland and a press vest. In death, they share a void of accountability. Their cases were handed to the Israeli army’s legal unit, but no one was ever held responsible. Israeli officials first blamed Palestinian gunmen for Abu Akleh’s death, before admitting an Israeli soldier likely fired the shot. Yet no criminal nor disciplinary action was taken. (The Israeli army and the Military Advocate General did not comment on the status of the inquiries into the deaths of Murtaja and Abu Daqqa.)

Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, following Hamas’s October 7 terror attacks, over 170 journalists have been killed, making it the deadliest conflict for the press since the Committee to Protect Journalists began tracking data in 1992. Prior to this war, and dating back to 2001, Israeli fire claimed the lives of at least 18 Palestinian journalists and two foreign reporters. According to CPJ, no one has ever been charged or held accountable.

After drawing international attention, the deaths of Murtaja, Abu Akleh, and Abu Daqqa were handed to the army’s General Staff Mechanism for Fact-Finding Assessment (FFAM) – only to vanish into opacity. Established in 2014, the FFAM conducts preliminary inquiries into suspected war crimes and advises the Military Advocate General on whether to open criminal investigations. In May 2024, the Israeli military reported that it was reviewing hundreds of incidents that occurred during the Gaza war.

“Set to fail”
Expectations of accountability remain low. “It takes years, and even if there’s a decision to open an investigation, the information that was used in the assessment is off limits and secret,” Yahav Erez, International Advocacy Coordinator at Israeli NGO Yesh Din, says. “It’s set to fail.”

In 2024, Yesh Din, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of Palestinians living under occupation, published a report revealing that out of the 664 complaints addressed to the FFAM over the past decade, 81.6% were closed without investigation, and only 0.17% resulted in prosecution.

“One should not expect a high number of indictments relating to operational conduct,” Dr. Eran Shamir-Borer, Director of the Center for Security and Democracy at the Israel Democracy Institute, and former Head of IDF International Law Department at the Military Advocate General’s Corps, told Forbidden Stories. “Look at any military around the world – the UK, Australia, the USA… Indictments are extremely rare.” The existence of such a legal department in and of itself, Shamir-Borer said, “is an indication of the importance that the IDF ascribes to international law.”

Experts and international organizations suggest that the FFAM is, rather than a tool for accountability, a way to shield Israel from international scrutiny and prosecution.

Specifically, by tying up investigations in drawn out domestic procedures, Israel can forestall the efforts of the International Criminal Court, which prosecutes individuals for war crimes, and which operates under a principle known as complementarity, meaning that a case is not admissible if there is a genuine attempt to prosecute the same crimes before a domestic court.

An internal memo from the Israeli State Attorney’s Office, which Forbidden Stories was able to review, acknowledges that while investigation mechanisms are vital for the rule of law, they also serve as a “protective layer for the state and those who act on its behalf against the exercise of authority by international tribunals and foreign courts.” In other words, in the view of the Israeli government, its justice system insulates the army from global instruments of accountability.

Experts told Forbidden Stories that Israel has not fulfilled its responsibilities under international law, making it appropriate for the ICC to step into the void they’ve created. On the rare occasions where there are convictions, “the penalties are utterly insignificant in relation to the seriousness of the offences,” François Dubuisson, a professor of International Law at the Université libre de Bruxelles, added.

In response to an inquiry by the consortium, the Israeli Ministry of Justice replied that, should “credible allegations raise concerns that a violation of international humanitarian law may have been committed, the Israeli legal system is willing and able to examine these allegations,” it added that it is “better equipped to do so than foreign or international courts.”

Crackdown on civil society
Exploiting the principle of complementarity isn’t the only tactic by which Israel protects itself from scrutiny. In our investigation, the consortium found that the Israeli Ministry of Justice coordinated not only with its colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but also with sympathetic corners of civil society to try to cut funding to organizations leading legal procedures both in Israeli and international courts. Among the key players in this effort was NGO Monitor, a right-wing Israeli advocacy group that campaigns against international organizations critical of Israel.

According to documents obtained by Itamar Benzaquen, a reporter for The Seventh Eye and member of the consortium, NGO Monitor is part of a network of organizations with close ties to the former Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

Leaked emails from the Israeli Ministry of Justice, obtained by the non-profit Distributed Denial of Secrets and shared with Forbidden Stories, also show regular exchanges between NGO Monitor and senior ministry officials. These discussions focused on undermining legal efforts by various civil society groups, notably the Norwegian Refugee Council, a European NGO providing legal and humanitarian aid to displaced communities around the world, notably in Palestine.

(In response to an inquiry from the consortium, NGO Monitor stated its research is “available for use by all stakeholders,” and that it encourages “governments around the world to adopt more responsible, transparent, and accountable policies as pertains to NGO activity and funding.” The Ministry of Justice did not respond to our questions regarding the Norwegian Refugee Council.)

(The Norwegian Refugee Council told Forbidden Stories that “Israel’s government is accountable for its actions within its internal legal and judicial system, and the international nature of the conflict necessitates additional scrutiny to ensure compliance with International Humanitarian Law.”)

In 2021, Israel designated six Palestinian human rights NGOs as terrorist organizations, leading the European Union and some of its countries to suspend the organization’s previous’ funding for a year. “Neither in our internal nor external auditing exercises did we find any evidence of violation of the contractual and financial obligations of the NGOs that had signed grant agreements with the EU,” Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, then Head of the EU Delegation to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and UNRWA, said.

The same conclusion was reached by the Foreign Ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, according to whom “no substantial information was received from Israel that would justify reviewing our policy towards the six Palestinian NGOs,” a joint statement reads.

“Palestinian organizations probably have the highest scrutiny, due diligence and compliance checks compared to any other civil society in the world,” said Brad Parker, Associate Director of Policy at the US advocacy group Center for Constitutional Rights, who previously served as a legal advisor with Defense for Children International-Palestine, one of the six Palestinian civil society organizations cleared by the EU proceedings.

“In the context of EU funding for projects in Palestine, we were very closely watched by the Israeli government and its intelligence services, as well pro-Israel advocacy groups,” von Burgsdorff added.

“No innocent civilians”
Accusations of terror links have also been widely leveled against journalists killed in Gaza. Among them, Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail Al Ghoul was killed in an Israeli drone strike on July 31, 2024. To justify the attack, the Israeli army released an edited screenshot of a file they claimed was retrieved from a Hamas computer. The document showed that Al-Ghoul, born in 1997, had attained a Hamas engineering military rank in 2007 – when he would have been just 10 years old. (The Israeli military did not comment on the presumed authenticity of these documents or the extent to which they were verified by the army.)

At the time of his death, during the Great March of Return, Murtaja was labeled by then-Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman as “a member of the military arm of Hamas.” Liberman, who never provided evidence to support his allegations, also stated that “there were no innocent civilians” at the march, during which more than 6,000 unarmed demonstrators were injured by military snipers, according to a UN report. But the Washington Post reported that Murtaja had previously been vetted by the U.S. government to receive a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grant to support Ain Media, suggesting that the strict US vetting process had cleared him of militant ties.

“Attempts to smear, delegitimize, and criminalize journalists who are doing their job are outrageous and irresponsible, as they put journalists at further risk,” CPJ told Forbidden Stories.

To gain further insight, the consortium spoke with three former Israeli soldiers, including an ex-officer, who were deployed in Gaza or its immediate surroundings last year. All three stated that the Israeli army does not precisely distinguish between civilians and militants – a situation that they said also affects journalists. (The Israeli army stated that it outright rejects the allegation of a systematic attack on journalists.)

The portrayal of Palestinians as terrorists is also taking a toll on organizations advocating for accountability. The Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, an Israeli NGO working to secure medical evacuations for civilians in Gaza, said Supreme Court hearings have been repeatedly disrupted by far-right convoys. “Physically, they [the institutions] are still open to us,” said Executive Director Tania Hary. “We’re able to submit petitions to the courts. But I would say that there’s certainly a hostility that we experience by the state representatives, by judges sometimes themselves, making disparaging comments, as if we’re representing the enemy, so to speak.”

In February, the Israeli parliament approved an amendment seeking to block any cooperation with the ICC and to criminalize individuals who assist the court, with penalties including prison time. “The activity of the International Criminal Court in The Hague … poses a real danger to the rule of law in the State of Israel,” the bill’s explanatory note reads.

“If you claim to be a democracy, then you should be more willing to engage with being called to account,” Dr. Wouter Werner, a professor of international law at the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law, said. “If you invoke the rule of law to avoid accountability, what kind of concept of democracy do you have?”

Efforts to undermine international jurisdiction also targeted the ICC itself. According to the State Attorney’s Office memo, authorities successfully closed “dozens of criminal and civil cases worldwide against the state and its high officials, thus it delayed and prevented an ICC investigation into Israel for over a decade.”

In May, a joint investigation by The Guardian and +972 Magazine, a member of the consortium, revealed that top Israeli government officials and former Head of Mossad Yossi Cohen led a nine-year surveillance operation targeting the ICC and Palestinian rights groups to try and derail war crimes prosecution, a tactic international law experts qualify as “completely unlawful and illegitimate.”

Israel’s growing hostility towards the court goes deep into the army’s legal branches meant to uphold international law. “Well, here you’re talking about the leading monkey court in the world,” Lt-Colonel Maurice Hirsch, former Chief Military Prosecutor who served in the Military Advocate General’s Corps, said of the ICC. “I think people have high expectations that criminal law would be the answer to the tragedies of war. But even in democratic countries with strong commitment to the rule of law it’s never the answer,” former head of the Military Advocate General Shamir-Borer added.

Complaints with evidence of various attacks and killings have been filed by Al Jazeera with the ICC Prosecutor’s office, Rodney Dixon, a lawyer for the network, told Forbidden Stories. “The investigation is ongoing. We are hopeful that the ICC will investigate and prosecute those responsible so that there is accountability,” he said.

Meanwhile, the families of the slain journalists find no solace. Three years on, Abu Akleh’s niece describes the increasing attacks on journalists as “very triggering.” “Had someone been held accountable for killing a journalist, even far before Shireen was targeted and killed, we would still have Shireen now,” Lina Abu Akleh said. “But unfortunately, there’s a cycle of impunity that continues to be repeated.”

“The international order is collapsing, because it has been unable to put an end to this war, and to 75 years of conflict and occupation, despite having all the necessary mechanisms to do so,” Dr Insaf Rezagui, researcher in International Law at the Institut Français du Proche-Orient, told Forbidden Stories. “Palestine is where international law goes to die.”

ARTICLE - Gazawood: Israeli NGO links account to large-scale disinformation / LINK: https://forbiddenstories.org/gazawood-israeli-ngo-links-account-disinformation/

The Israeli X account called Gazawood claims to expose alleged Palestinian “lies” from Gaza. But Forbidden Stories and its partners have uncovered research from an Israeli NGO indicating that Gazawood does, in fact, practice online disinformation on a massive scale.

By Frédéric Métézeau
April 11th, 2025
With Itamar Benzaquen (The Seventh Eye/Shakuf) and Nicolas Falez (RFI).

Key findings
Only 5.75% of Gazawood’s so-called “debunks” are actually credible, according to Israeli NGO Fake Reporter.
We identified three individuals involved in this disinformation project: an Israeli writer of teen fiction, an American historian known for his attacks on journalists and a former general in the Israeli army.

“Is Hossam Shabat really dead? The evidence raises serious doubts—his ‘death’ might’ve been staged, for reasons unknown.”

This conspiratorial post was published on March 26, 2025, by the X account Gazawood, which has over 70,000 followers. Two days earlier, Hossam Shabat, a reporter for Al Jazeera, was killed in northern Gaza by the Shin Bet, the Israeli domestic intelligence service, and the army. According to the latter, it had targeted “a Hamas terrorist.” The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called it a “murder.”

Despite these assertions and the numerous videos online showing the journalist lying lifeless next to his car, as well as at his funeral, Gazawood suggested that Shabat was not actually dead: “The whole thing is fake. Hossam staged his own death.” The account cited a lack of visible ground damage from the alleged strike and spots of blood that supposedly didn’t match any real injury. “We’re not claiming facts—just asking the hard questions,” the account’s author wrote, leaving the door open to speculation and conspiracy theories.

As part of the Gaza Project, Forbidden Stories, its Israeli partner The Seventh Eye/Shakuf and RFI investigated the Gazawood account. The investigation relied in particular on work by Fake Reporter, an Israeli NGO dedicated to fighting online hate and disinformation.

Palestinians accused of systematic lying

The origins of this story go back to the Second Intifada. On September 30, 2000, France 2 broadcasted footage showing the death of young Mohammed Al-Dura in his father’s arms, killed by Israeli army gunfire. But American medieval historian Richard Landes was convinced the network’s Jerusalem correspondent Charles Enderlin had staged the entire scene (see inset). Landes coined it “Pallywood,” a portmanteau of Palestine and Hollywood. “Like it’s a film industry,” explains Ghassan Mattar, researcher and OSINT specialist at Fake Reporter. “The idea is to claim that anything coming from Palestinians is a lie.”

The X Gazawood account was created in November 2023, after Israel launched its war in Gaza in response to Hamas’s terrorist attacks. “The Gazawood account uses that term and changes it to the current conflict in Gaza, to say that everything coming out of Gaza is essentially a lie,” said Mattar. Through digital investigations corroborated by human testimony, Fake Reporter and The Seventh Eye identified the person behind the account to be Idan Knochen, an ultra-Orthodox Jew from Jerusalem, previously known as the author of fantasy novels for young readers. In a conversation with our partners, Knochen confirmed this information but declined to give an interview, instead referring them to another figure involved in Gazawood: none other than Richard Landes. “They got in touch with me, and we’ve been trying to coordinate a project to present the whole issue of this staging,” Landes confirmed to The Seventh Eye.

Landes also identified former Israeli brigadier general and former director-general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs Yossi Kuperwasser as being part of this disinformation project. When contacted by The Seventh Eye, Kuperwasser declined to go into detail: “I have not been directly involved in the project. I connected Richard with various people so he could present the idea to them.” He also refused to name these “various people.” One thing is certain: Gazawood’s influence is undeniable. In addition to its X account, it operates a website and a public Telegram channel. It also relies on a network of influencers, some with large followings, who amplify its messages.

According to Fake Reporter, between October 7, 2023, and July 15, 2024, mentions of “Pallywood” (in English and Hebrew) rose by 5838% on X. Gazawood saw an even more dramatic increase: 29913% over the same period. However, Richard Landes has even broader ambitions: “We’d like to work with the army spokesperson’s unit . . . most of the people there weren’t even born during the Al-Dura case.”

Only 5.75% of posts were deemed credible
The Gazawood Research Group, a private Telegram group which was infiltrated by Fake Reporter, collects and analyzes videos supposedly coming from Gaza. Around 30 members examine such videos in an attempt to “debunk” them.

But according to Mattar, Gazawood itself spreads falsehoods and disinformation. After reviewing the 731 debunking posts published by the account from December 25, 2023, the date of the first post, to August 25, 2024, and fact-checking them, Fake Reporter considered only 42 to be “legitimate.” “Only around 5.75% of its content is actual debunking or fact-checking. The other content is just finding the most ridiculous information inside the video to claim it’s fake, which is not how fact-checking works,” Mattar asserts.

The account regularly posts accusations to discredit Palestinians, claiming that dolls are used in place of dead babies or noting smiles among the rubble in bombed-out Gaza. Gazawood suggests that Palestinians are masters at staging, citing a hospital scene in which a visitor is flanked by a cameraman and a boom operator as proof in one instance.

But Fake Reporter discovered that the footage was taken from a fictional Palestinian TV series called The Bleeding Land.

The incriminating message has since been deleted. When asked about the reliability of the account, Landes said, “ I know nothing that’s untrue. Maybe I know of some cases where it was over-interpreted.” As for the 5.75% credibility rate cited by Fake Reporter, he said that “seems an extraordinarily severe standard.”

Lies that are "bigger and stronger"
To defend himself, Landes also referred to the “emotional blackmail” surrounding images of dead children in Gaza: “ If we don’t sympathize with all this suffering, we’re heartless ? I’ve been accused of that, you know, that ‘Pallywood is making fun of Palestinian suffering.’ But no, it is them who are mocking it..”

According to Marcus Bösch, a researcher at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences and an expert on disinformation and social media, Pallywood-Gazawood looks like a trap set for both professional journalists and the general public: “These lies are simply bigger, stronger and also trigger more in the brain.” In his view, “This whole debunking, fact-checking game is actually ineffective in many situations because then the other side debunks the debunker again . . . it’s an endless iteration.”