\n<\/p>\n
Read the blog in Arabic here<\/a>.<\/p>\n On August 25, 2025, Israeli strikes on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis <\/span>killed at least five journalists<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0 including Associated Press freelancer Mariam Dagga, Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Salama, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, and Reuters freelancer Moaz Abu Taha, along with medics and patients. The attack, carried out in two consecutive strikes, saw the second hit journalists and first responders who had rushed to the scene.<\/span><\/p>\n This came only two weeks after an airstrike on the Al-Shifa Hospital <\/span>killed four Al Jazeera journalists<\/span><\/a>, reporter Anas al-Sharif, correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, in what Al Jazeera denounced as a \u201ctargeted assassination\u201d aimed at silencing the last remaining voices documenting events from inside Gaza.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n More than <\/span>190 journalists and media workers have been killed<\/span><\/a> in the Israel-Gaza war from 2023\u201325, more press members than were killed worldwide in the prior three years combined (2020\u201322). The Committee to Protect Journalists and other rights groups warn that these killings shatter the already fragile infrastructure of documentation on which accountability depends.<\/span><\/p>\n This was not an isolated act of violence but part of a much broader pattern of attacks that have been eliminating witnesses in Gaza. A systematic attempt to dismantle the capacities to record, preserve, and expose the war crimes committed by Israel. These actions are not only violations of international law but also <\/span>amount to war crimes<\/span><\/a> and form part of a broader genocidal1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0campaign committed by Israel. Each life taken is also a severed connection to memory, evidence, and the possibility of justice. Silencing documentation is not collateral damage, it is a deliberate tactic.<\/span><\/p>\n Documentation in contexts of war and authoritarianism is never neutral. It is not simply news content, nor a stream of images for consumption. It is an act of survival and resistance, a way to preserve memory when official narratives deny or distort reality. Testimonies, videos, and photographs are not mere records of violence but instruments of justice, fragments of evidence that communities can hold onto in order to demand accountability. Journalists may be the most visible actors in this process, yet in their absence it is local communities and citizen documenters who take on this dangerous responsibility. Their recordings, often made at extraordinary personal risk, become part of a collective archive of truth. Without them, atrocities risk disappearing into silence, denied in the present and unprovable in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n This is why the targeting of journalists has consequences that extend far beyond the immediate loss of life. When a journalist is killed or disappeared, documentation is interrupted, testimonies are lost, and evidence that could have supported accountability is destroyed. Fear and uncertainty spread among others documenting (including citizen journalists), leading some to stop or restrict their work. This creates gaps in coverage that leave communities unseen and violations unrecorded. The result is a weaker body of evidence, making it harder to demonstrate patterns of abuse or pursue justice in the future.\u00a0 Killing journalists is not only an attack on individuals, but on the broader human rights of entire communities struggling to put an end to injustice.<\/span><\/p>\n At WITNESS, our work in the MENA region and globally is grounded in the belief that documentation is essential to exposing grave human rights abuses and advancing the pursuit of justice.<\/span><\/p>\n We provide tools, training, and strategies that strengthen the infrastructures of truth so that victims of human rights abuse can pursue justice and demand accountability. Our<\/span> Video as Evidence Field Guide<\/span><\/a><\/em> offers practical methods for filming in ways that preserve evidentiary value while protecting those who are documenting. Our <\/span>Archiving for Human Rights<\/span><\/a><\/em> resource supports activists in ensuring that digital files survive in the long term, beyond the lifespan of platforms or devices. Our guidance on <\/span>Interviewing Survivors<\/span><\/a><\/em> centers dignity, ethics, and care, recognising that documentation must never reproduce harm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gaza Media Resources<\/span><\/a>, our effort with <\/span>Smex<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>7amleh<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Meedan<\/span><\/a> that started since the war in Gaza began in 2023, hosts a wide range of community-driven content under Creative Commons, including guidance on safely filming human rights abuses, methods for archiving and securing digital footage, approaches to open-source investigations (OSINT), and templates for verifying information and media. These materials are grounded in real-world experience and were created to help documenters maintain continuity in their work, protect evidence, and ensure that critical records survive beyond immediate crises.<\/span><\/p>\n The killing of journalists is a stark reminder of what is at stake. It shows that truth itself is a battlefield, and that infrastructures of documentation are targeted precisely because they are powerful. What is recorded today will determine what can be remembered tomorrow, and whether justice can ever be pursued. To continue documenting under such risk is therefore not only an act of courage but an act of defiance against erasure.<\/span><\/p>\n Truth is also contested by technologies. AI systems are being used to <\/span>automate surveillance and the violence of war<\/span><\/a> against people in Gaza, but they are also being used to undermine the truth. AI generated disinformation and the misuse of AI detection tools are dissolving the public\u2019s trust in online information and creating new ways to discredit authentic evidence from Gaza and Israel. <\/span>Evidence of crimes<\/span><\/a> or <\/span>real people appealing to global audiences<\/span><\/a> have been falsely labelled as \u201cAI generated,\u201d erasing real experiences and undermining accountability.<\/span><\/p>\n WITNESS\u2019 work on AI and human rights is integral to how we support frontline documenters in fortifying the truth. We are developing guidance and advocacy around how <\/span>provenance<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>detection<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>safeguards<\/span><\/a> against synthetic media can be shaped to protect and not undermine those documenting atrocities. This means not only training people to preserve video evidence but also working globally to ensure that new AI tools are not misused to erase their testimonies.<\/span><\/p>\n Every preserved video, every archived testimony, and every trained documenter represents a refusal to allow violence to dictate silence. In strengthening documentation practices and networks of solidarity, we affirm that memory will endure and evidence will survive towards the pursuit of justice and accountability. At WITNESS, we stand with those who continue to record, preserve, and testify under extraordinary threat wherever they are in the world. Protecting documentation is not simply about recording history, it is about keeping the possibility of justice alive. And soon, we will be sharing new practical guidance, <\/span>Filming the Aftermath of Aerial Attacks: An Introduction for Documenters<\/span><\/i> to support frontline documenters in safely and effectively capturing the consequences of militarized strikes.<\/span><\/p>\n Read the blog in Arabic here. On August 25, 2025, Israeli strikes on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis killed at least five journalists,\u00a0 including Associated Press freelancer Mariam Dagga, Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Salama, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, and Reuters freelancer Moaz Abu Taha, along with medics and patients. The attack, carried out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":310928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12022],"tags":[59455,24310,5089,583,5109,18175,5477],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-315806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activist","tag-erasure","tag-journalists","tag-killing","tag-memory","tag-palestine","tag-targeted","tag-truth"],"yoast_head":"\n