Killed.

At the Committee to Protect Journalists we documented that 2024 was the deadliest year for journalists, with an unprecedented number of those killed by Israel reporting from Gaza while covering Israel’s military operations.

That trend did not end; it continued instead in 2025, making this war by far the deadliest for the press in history.

When a journalist is killed in a besieged war city, the loss is no longer personal. It is institutional, it is the loss of eyes and ears on the ground: a loss of verification, context, and witness.

Journalists are the ones who turn statistics into stories. They give names to numbers and faces to headlines. They make distant realities real for the rest of the world, and provide windows into the truth and doors into other worlds.

That is why the killing of Anas al-Sharif last week reverberates so loudly, not just as a tragic loss of one life, but as a silencing of many stories that will now never be told.

Not just reporting
Anas al-Sharif was not just reporting from Gaza, he was filling a vital void. When international journalists couldn’t access the Strip, his work for Al Jazeera helped the world understand what was happening.

On August 10, 2025, an airstrike hit a tent near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City where journalists had gathered. Al-Sharif and several of his colleagues were killed.

The strike — its method, its targets, and its aftermath – wasn’t isolated. It fits a pattern CPJ and other press freedom organisations have tracked for months: in Gaza, journalists are facing not just the incidental risks of war, but repeated, targeted threats.

And so far, there has been no accountability.

The Israeli military framed its action differently: officials alleged that al-Sharif was affiliated with Hamas and that the attack was aimed at a legitimate threat. But so far, the evidence presented publicly failed to meet the test of independent witnesses; no public evidence has met the basic standard of independent verification.

UN experts and press freedom groups have called for transparent investigations, warning of the danger in labelling journalists as combatants without clear, verifiable proof.

In the turmoil of war, there’s a dangerous tendency to accept official narratives too quickly, too uncritically. That’s exactly how truth gets lost.

Immediate chilling effect
The repercussions of silencing reporters in a besieged territory are far-reaching. There is the immediate chilling effect: journalists who stay risk death; those who leave — if they even can — leave behind untold stories.

Second, when local journalists are killed, international media have no choice but to rely increasingly on official statements or third-party briefings for coverage, many with obvious biases and blind spots.

And third, the families of victims and the communities they represented are denied both justice and memory.

Al-Sharif’s camera recorded funerals and destroyed homes, bore witness to lives cut short. His death leaves those images without a voice, pointing now only into silence.

We also need to name the power dynamics at play. When an enormously powerful state with overwhelming military capability acts inside a densely populated area, the vast majority of casualties will be civilians — those who cannot leave — and local reporters, who cannot shelter.

This is not a neutral law of physics; it is the to-be-anticipated result of how this war waged in a space where journalists will not be able to go into shelter.

We have repeatedly documented that journalists killed in this war are Palestinian — not international correspondents. The most vulnerable witnesses, those most essential to documenting it, are also the most vulnerable to being killed.

So what should the international community and the world leaders do beyond offering condolences?

Demand independent investigation
For starters, they must demand an immediate, independent investigation. Not just routine military reviews, but real accountability — gathering evidence, preserving witness testimony, and treating each death with the seriousness it deserves.

Accountability cannot be a diplomatic nicety; it must be a forensic process with witnesses and evidence.

Additionally, journalists must be protected as civilians. That’s not optional. Under international law, reporters who aren’t taking part in the fighting are civilians — period.

That is an obligation not a choice. And when safety isn’t possible, we must get them out. Evacuate them. Save their lives. And in doing so, allow others in — international reporters who can continue telling the story.

We are past the time for neutrality. The use of language like “conflict”, “collateral damage”, or “civilian casualties” cannot be used to deflect responsibility, especially when the victims are people whose only “crime” was documenting human suffering.

When the world loses journalists like Anas al-Sharif, it loses more than just one voice. We lose a crucial balance of power and access to truth; it fails to maintain the ability to understand what’s happening on the ground. And future generations lose the memory — the record — of what took place here.

Stand up for facts
The international press community, human rights organisations, and diplomatic actors need to stand up. Not just for investigations, but for facts. Families in Gaza deserve more than empty statements. They deserve the truth about who was killed, and why. So does every person reading this from afar.

And the journalists still risking everything to report from inside Gaza deserve more than sympathy. They deserve protection.

The killing of journalists — like those from Al Jazeera — isn’t just devastating on a human level. It’s a direct attack on journalism itself. When a state can murder reporters without consequence, it sends a message to the entire world: telling the truth might cost you your life.

I write this as someone who believes that journalism is, above all, a moral act. It’s about bearing witness. It’s about insisting that lives under siege are still lives that matter, still worth seeing.

Silencing a journalist doesn’t just stop a story — it erases a lifetime of effort to bring others into view.

The murder of al-Sharif isn’t just another tragedy. It’s an assault on truth itself, in a place where truth is desperately needed. If we let this keep happening, we’re not just losing lives — we’re losing the last honest witnesses in a world ruled by force.

And that’s something we can’t afford to give up.

Sara Qudah is the regional director for Middle East and North Africa of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Sara on LinkedIn: Sara Qudah

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An escalation in fighting between Indonesian security forces and Papuan pro-independence fighters in West Papua has seriously threatened the security of the largely indigenous population, says Human Rights Watch in a new report.

The human rights watchdog warned that all parties to the conflict are obligated to abide by international humanitarian law, also called the laws of war.

The security forces’ military operations in the densely forested Central Highlands areas are accused of killing and wounding dozens of civilians with drone strikes and the indiscriminate use of explosive munitions, and displaced thousands of indigenous Papuans, said the report.

The National Liberation Army of West Papua, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, has claimed responsibility in the killing of 17 alleged miners between April 6 and April 9.

“The Indonesian military has a long history of abuses in West Papua that poses a particular risk to the Indigenous communities,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

“Concerned governments need to press the Prabowo [Subianto] administration and Papuan separatist armed groups to abide by the laws of war.”

The fighting escalated after the attack on the alleged miners, which the armed group accused of being targeted soldiers or military informers.

Operation Habema
The Indonesian military escalated its ongoing operations, called Operation Habema, in West Papua’s six provinces, especially in the Central Highlands, where Papuan militant groups have been active for more than four decades.

On May 14, the military said that it had killed 18 resistance fighters in Intan Jaya regency, and that it had recovered weapons including rifles, bows and arrows, communications equipment, and Morning Star flags — the symbol of Papuan resistance.

Further military operations have allegedly resulted in burning down villages and attacks on churches. Papuan activists and pastors told Human Rights Watch that government forces treated all Papuan forest dwellers who owned and routinely used bows and arrows for hunting as “combatants”.

Information about abuses has been difficult to corroborate because the hostilities are occurring in remote areas in Intan Jaya, Yahukimo, Nduga, and Pegunungan Bintang regencies.

Pastors, church workers, and local journalists interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that Indonesian forces had been using drones and helicopter gunships to drop bombs.

“Civilians from the Korowai tribe community, known for their tall treehouse dwellings, have been harmed in these attacks, and have desperately fled the fighting,” said the Human Rights Watch report.

“Displaced villagers, mostly from Intan Jaya, have sought shelter and refuge in churches in Sugapa, the capital of the regency.”

Resistance allegations
The armed resistance group has made allegations, which Human Rights Watch could not corroborate, that the Indonesian military attacks harmed civilians.

It reported that a mortar or rocket attack outside a church in Ilaga, Puncak regency, hit two young men on May 6, killing one of them, Deris Kogoya, an 18-year-old student.

The group said that the Indonesian military attack on May 14, in which the military claimed all 18 people killed were pro-independence combatants, mostly killed civilians.

Ronald Rischardt Tapilatu, pastor of the Evangelical Christian Church of the Land of Papua, said that at least 3 civilians were among the 18 bodies. Human Rights Watch has a list of the 18 killed, which includes 1 known child.

The daughter of Hetina Mirip said her mother was found dead on May 17 near her house in Sugapa, while Indonesian soldiers surrounded their village. She wrote that the soldiers tried to cremate and bury her mother’s body.

A military spokesman denied the shooting.

One evident impact of the renewed fighting is that thousands of indigenous Papuans have been forced to flee their ancestral lands.

Seven villages attacked
The Vanuatu-based United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) reported that the military had attacked seven villages in Ilaga with drones and airstrikes, forcing many women and children to flee their homes. Media reports said that it was in Gome, Puncak regency.

International humanitarian law obligates all warring parties to distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians. Civilians may never be the target of attack.

Warring parties are required to take all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians and civilian objects, such as homes, shops, and schools. Attacks may target only combatants and military objectives.

Attacks that target civilians or fail to discriminate between combatants and civilians, or that would cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population compared to the anticipated military gain, are prohibited.

Parties must treat everyone in their custody humanely, not take hostages, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The Free Papua Movement has long sought self-determination and independence in West Papua, on the grounds that the Indonesian government-controlled “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 was illegitimate and did not involve indigenous Papuans.

It advocates holding a new, fair, and transparent referendum, and backs armed resistance.

Vast conflict area
Human Rights Watch reports that the conflict areas, including Intan Jaya, are on the northern side of Mt Grasberg, spanning a vast area from Sugapa to Oksibil in the Pegunungan Bintang regency, approximately 425 km long.

Sugapa is also known as the site of Wabu Block, which holds approximately 2.3 million kilos of gold, making it one of Indonesia’s five largest known gold reserves.

Wabu Block is currently under the licensing process of the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

“Papuans have endured decades of systemic racism, heightening concerns of further atrocities,” HRW’s Asia director Ganguly said.

“Both the Indonesian military and Papuan armed groups need to comply with international standards that protect civilians.”

Republished from Human Rights Watch.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“It looks like Hiroshima. It looks like Germany at the end of World War Two,” says an Israeli-American historian and professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University about the horrifying reality of Gaza.

Professor Omer Bartov, has described Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza as an “act of annihilation” of the Palestinian people, reports Middle East Eye.

Dr Bartov said that not only had Israeli forces been moving displaced Palestinians around the Gaza Strip but they had also been strategically bombing mosques, museums, hospitals, and anything that served the health or culture of a people — in an attempt to cleanse the entire area of Palestinians.

Al Jazeera reports that an Israeli drone attack on the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza targeted a group of people gathered at a phone charging and internet distribution point, killing three people.

According to a witness, this was the only point in the refugee camp where people trapped in the area charge their phones and connect to the internet to be in touch with family members who are displaced in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

This was not the first time that the Israeli military has carried out deliberate attacks on such connectivity points.

Houthis ballistic missile wounds 14
Meanwhile, a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis from Yemen has broken through Israeli defences above and below the Earth’s atmosphere before slamming into Tel Aviv, reports Israel’s public broadcaster Kan.

It said interceptors from the Arrow missile defence system were launched into the upper atmosphere after detecting the missile, but missed the target and failed to stop it before it entered Israeli territory.

As captured in numerous videos, two more interceptors were then fired in the lower atmosphere, also failing to shoot down the missile.

At least 14 people were wounded after a failed interception of the ballistic missile.

This was the third incident of its kind just this week. The Israeli army says it was now investigating why it was not intercepted and why this was such a significant failure.

Since the start of the war, the Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles, and more than 170 drones in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. The Houthis have said they would continue the attacks until Israel ends its war in the besieged enclave.

In July, there was a drone that evaded all Israeli air defences, no siren sounded, and it was able to detonate in the middle of Tel Aviv and kill one person.

This time, it was just one minute from the time the sirens rang until the moment of impact.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz