New report claims more journalists died in Gaza than in both world wars combined

Likewise, it suggested that 71 journalists were killed in the wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, which had a collective death toll higher than Gaza’s entire population.

Other conflicts featured on the CWP’s illustrative graph were the wars in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Ukraine, all of which were apparently found to have a lower death figure for journalists.

It did not, though, include the Iraq War, which it admitted had a marginally higher media death toll. A footnote in the report explained: “More journalists, in total, have been killed in the Iraq War than in war in Gaza since October 7, 2023 but the death tolls are not comparable. From the US invasion on March 19, 2003 through March 26, 2025, 285 journalists and media workers were killed in Iraq – roughly 13 per year. In Gaza, 232 were killed between October 7, 2023 and March 26, 2025, an average of around 13 killed each month.”

The report has been circulating on social media and its findings have been retweeted by, among others, Amnesty International and BBC News’ World Affairs Editor John Simpson.

Amnesty wrote: “No conflict in modern history has seen a higher number of journalists killed.

"The intentional targeting and killing of journalists is a war crime. As is the strategy of Israeli authorities that wants to stop its war crimes from being exposed and those responsible being brought to justice.

"[The UK] can, and must, end all trade or cooperation that contributes to the genocide, apartheid, and the occupation; sanction Israeli officials implicated in international crimes; fully support the [International Criminal Court] investigation and stop arming Israel.”

However, the report has attracted criticism for its alleged neglect of historical data.

For example, Salo Aizenberg of Honest Reporting, a pro-Israel media monitoring group, pointed out in reply to Simpson’s tweet that Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial institution, reports that 1,425 Jewish journalists were murdered by the Nazis during the Shoah.

"According to the Watson School of International and Public Affairs... Jewish journalists don't count. According to Yad Vashem 1,425 Jews murdered in the Holocaust were journalists,” he wrote.

In response to Amnesty’s post, he added: “Disgusting erasure of 1,425 journalists documented by Yad Vashem killed in the Holocaust. There was a massive Yiddish press in Europe at the time erased by the Nazis.”

Likewise, Gabriel Epstein, a policy and communications associate at Israel Policy Forum who has extensively analysed Gaza death toll data, told the JC: “Most wars yield only general estimates of deaths, and no data so precise as the occupation of those killed.

"That should be a major source of caution that all sources are incomplete, especially as one goes further back in time. It is a safe assumption that throughout most conflicts, journalist deaths have not been counted specifically.

"There is a basic folly in looking at wars with tens or hundreds of times the death toll as Gaza, including high numbers of civilians, and assuming that many journalists would not have been killed.

"In general, the sourcing for the most publicised figure in the report is a mess. It does not take into account the extreme spottiness of the historical record – it is only in the last 30-35 years that tracking journalist deaths has become comprehensive. Moreover, it pulls from a wide array of sources which vary widely in criteria and completeness.”