The pro-Israel group “HonestReporting Canada” (HRC) is regularly pressuring Canadian journalists to regurgitate Israel’s excuses for killing their Palestinian colleagues in Gaza.
Over the past year, HRC has repeatedly quoted the Israeli military’s claims that it does not deliberately target journalists, and has suggested that “certain journalists” in Gaza are working as “terror operatives.”
In “alerts” published by HRC between November 2023 and October 2024, the pro-Israel group has quoted the Israeli military stating that it will “never deliberately target journalists,” and has dismissed arguments to the contrary as “simply false.”
“That journalists have been killed in Gaza covering the war between Hamas and Israel is not in dispute; what is in dispute is the contention that Israel is purposely targeting them, an accusation that Israel strenuously denies,” a HRC alert stated in December 2023.
In a March 4 alert targeting a Hill Times columnist, HRC conceded that “every innocent casualty is a tragedy,” before repeating claims that some journalists in Gaza “have ties to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations.” This claim, HRC said, means it is dishonest to portray such individuals as “uninvolved journalists or civilians.”
HRC also stated that “some of the ‘journalists’ in question are actually official Hamas propagandists, rather than objective reporters trying to nobly share the facts with the world.”
Davide Mastracci
More recently, on October 15, HRC targeted the vice-president of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), Fatima Syed, for not repeating claims that, as phrased by HRC, “between a third and a half of these so-called journalists [who were killed in Gaza] reportedly had affiliations with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
In the same alert, HRC took issue with the way that some journalists in Gaza covered Israel’s attacks, stating: “Even reporters who aren’t part of Hamas provide hostile, context-free coverage at best.”
HRC issued similar alerts against the Toronto Star in January, Le Devoir in February, the CBC in May and The Walrus in May.
In the alert against The Walrus, HRC stated of the at least 83 journalists who had been killed in Gaza at the time: “These so-called ‘journalists’ are not civilian members of the press, but themselves are complicit in Hamas’ terrorist crimes.”
“When one embeds oneself within a terrorist hideout, or rides into battle atop an armoured car equipped with automatic weapons, no press credential is going to save you from becoming collateral damage when that terror cell is taken out,” the alert continued.
On January 28, HRC suggested that CBC’s acknowledgement that the Israeli government “denies” that it deliberately targets journalists and their families was insufficient. The same alert cited an example of two slain Palestinian journalists who the Israeli military accused of being associated with or directly engaged in militant activity — a claim that was later disputed and debunked.
HRC also cited the same claim in a January 11 alert targeting the Toronto Star, with the pro-Israel group questioning why two opinion writers did not repeat Israel’s position on the matter.
Israel’s claims about its attacks on Palestinian journalists have been debunked or at least strongly disputed by international experts and advocacy groups.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 134 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon since October 2023. CPJ said many cases have been difficult to investigate due to the hostile conditions on the ground, but determined that Israel directly targeted journalists in at least five cases, which the organization considers to be “murders.”
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) paints an even more disturbing picture, stating that there are 31 credible cases where Israel directly targeted journalists because of their profession. The organization has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court over Israel’s alleged war crimes against journalists.
In February, United Nations (UN) experts shared reports that said journalists have come under attack by Israeli forces despite wearing clearly marked press jackets and helmets, and travelling in clearly marked vehicles. This, the UN experts said, “would seem to indicate that the killings, injury, and detention are a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting.”
In several cases, Israel’s purported evidence for claims about journalists working as militants has been debunked. In July, for example, Israel killed Ismail al-Ghoul, who had been working for Al Jazeera, one of the few outlets that still has reporters on the ground in Gaza. Israel said al-Ghoul was a member of Hamas’ military wing, and presented a document that allegedly showed he had been appointed to an elite Hamas unit in 2007.
The problem with that claim, according to a press freedom advocate who spoke to Al Jazeera, is that al-Ghoul was just 10 years old in 2007.
In January, Israel killed journalists Hamza Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya in a drone strike. In a case cited by HRC, the Israeli military claimed Dahdouh was an officer with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and that Thuraya fought with Hamas, pointing to a drone used by the two journalists as evidence that the pair posed an “immediate threat” to Israeli forces.
In March, however, The Washington Post obtained and reviewed footage from the drone, finding no evidence that it was being used for any kind of military purpose. After interviewing 14 witnesses of the attack, “the Post found no indications that either man was operating as anything other than a journalist that day,” the outlet reported.
Israel also presented what it said was a document allegedly linking Dahdouh to PIJ, but experts speaking to BBC News cast doubt on the document’s authenticity. The journalist’s family members also dismissed the allegations as false.
Legal experts have also warned that mere membership of an organization linked to a militant group does not automatically grant the Israeli military the right to target those individuals.
An investigation by The Guardian in June found: “Amid a loosening of the [Israeli military’s] interpretation of the laws of war [...] some within the IDF appear to have viewed journalists working in Gaza for outlets controlled by or affiliated with Hamas to be legitimate military targets.”
Adil Haque, a law professor at Rutgers University, told The Guardian the position shows “a complete misunderstanding or just a wilful disregard for international law.” Legal experts explained that simply working for such an outlet does not make an individual a legitimate military target under international law.
This month, Israel claimed it had found evidence that six Al Jazeera journalists have ties to militant groups — a claim that the network denounced as a “baseless fabrication.”
“The Network views these fabricated accusations as a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide,” Al Jazeera said in a statement.
The CPJ noted that Israel had “repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence.”
Al Jazeera noted that the accusations came shortly after its investigative unit released a film documenting damning evidence of potential Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
In May, Israel’s government voted to ban Al Jazeera, in a move decried by Tim Dawson of the International Federation of Journalists as “part of a long set of actions that the Israeli government has taken to try and thwart free reporting of this conflict.”
Previous Complaints
HRC has also complained about the way Canadian journalists covered Israel’s killing of Palestinian journalists before the state began its war on Gaza in October 2023.
In May 2022, the Israeli military deliberately shot and killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank, where Abu Akleh was reporting on a raid by Israeli forces. Eyewitnesses immediately pointed to Israel’s responsibility for the killing, and multiple independent investigations would later confirm this.
The Israeli military eventually admitted that one of its soldiers was likely responsible for the killing, but falsely characterized the shooting as accidental, a claim that some Canadian government officials quietly attempted to promote behind the scenes.
In the weeks following Abu Akleh’s death, HRC issued multiple “alerts” falsely claiming that reports noting Israel’s responsibility for the killing were inaccurate, or suggesting that the party responsible for her death was unknown.
As recently reported by The Maple, J-Source published a call on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) encouraging journalists who have received online threats after being targeted by HRC to get in touch via an online form created by the Canada Press Freedom Project.
Alex Cosh
An article published by La Converse earlier this month shared several accounts from journalists who have been targeted by HRC.
One reporter, Iman Kassam, told La Converse that after she was targeted by HRC in 2021, she received several weeks of what she considers to be “online harassment” — but was offered no support from her employer.
Detailing her experience in The Rover, Kassam wrote that after she was targeted by HRC for interviewing a man wearing a keffiyeh at a protest unrelated to Palestine, “what followed was weeks of relentless harassment flooding my inboxes, demanding that I be fired, claiming that ‘people like me should not exist.’”
Months later, Kassam explained, CTV scrubbed the interview from its website without explanation or consultation.
HRC did not respond to an emailed request for comment for this article.
Alex Cosh is the news editor of The Maple.
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