British News Agency

According to the Israeli-Palestinian outlet +972 Magazine, a special unit in the Israeli army has been tasked with identifying reporters who could be smeared as covert Hamas fighters, targeting them, and reducing international outrage over the killing of media workers.

The report, citing three intelligence sources, said the "legitimization cell" was established after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, with the aim of gathering information that could bolster Israel’s image and secure diplomatic and military support from key allies.

According to the report, in at least one case, the unit distorted information to wrongly label a journalist as a militant — a designation that in Gaza effectively means a death sentence. One source said the label was changed before the journalist was attacked.

Earlier this week, after Israel claimed that Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif was a Hamas commander, it killed him and three colleagues in makeshift news centers. These assassinations drew global attention to the grave dangers faced by Palestinian journalists in Gaza and to Israel’s attempts to manipulate war-related media coverage.

Foreign journalists are barred from entering Gaza, except for a few short trips under strict IDF supervision, which include restrictions such as prohibiting conversations with Palestinians.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Palestinian journalists reporting from the ground are the most at risk in the world, with more than 180 killed in Israeli attacks in less than two years. CPJ confirmed that Israel deliberately targeted and killed 26 journalists during this period, categorizing them as assassinations.