SCOOP: 50% of all journalists killed by Israel were killed at home, according to Databases for Palestine
Out of 311 journalists killed by Israel in Gaza since Oct 7, 154 were killed at home, nearly all in aerial bombings, suggesting a link to systematic AI-assisted militarized assassinations
“This is my will, my final message,” reads journalist Anas Al-Sharif’s last words for this world. “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.”
On Aug. 10, an Israeli aerial bomb crashed down on an Al Jazeera media tent, killing Al-Sharif, his cousin, and journalists Muhammed Qraiqea, Ibrahim Daher, Momen Aliwa, Mohammed Nofal, and Muhammad Al-Khalidi. As part of its genocidal siege, starvation, and scorched earth strategy against all Palestinian civilians, Israel has established a systematic targeting of journalists for assassination in the field and at home.
While reporting on Israeli aerial bombings on refugee camps, Anas Al-Sharif and his Al Jazeera colleagues were directly targeted by Israeli aircraft while residing in their media tent near al-Shifa Hospital. “Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalia refugee camp.”
Two weeks later, Israel massacred 22 civilians at Nasser Hospital, including five journalists, in a double-strike bombing in Khan Yunis. One other journalist was killed by Israeli gunfire in his displacement tent that day.
Since their deaths, global outrage at Israel’s annihilation campaign of journalists has peaked, with prominent Western outlets finally voicing some amount of sympathy for their murdered and martyred non-white Palestinian journalism colleagues. After 24 months, 2 years, of Israeli genocide, mainstream outlets are only now beginning to acknowledge Israel’s role in journalist killings.
And thanks to one small volunteer-run organization, Databases for Palestine, a broader picture of Israel’s journalist assassination campaign may come into focus.
As of publication, Israel has killed at least 311 journalists and media workers in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to Databases for Palestine, including 154 who were killed at home, primarily through aerial bombings. Those killed at home by Israel make up 49.5% of all journalists killed in Gaza, many killed in bombings throughout the night and early morning.
Just as heartbreaking, at least 756 family members of the journalists martyred at home were killed in the same attack by Israel. For every journalist killed at home, 4.9 or roughly 5 family members are also killed.
Israel has killed 28 Palestinian journalists in Gaza since No Frontiers began reporting this story on Aug. 8.
The archival group Databases for Palestine is organized and operated by a growing roster of anonymous volunteers and is among a handful of similar groups that are archiving videos, images, and posts published on social media by Palestinians surviving the Israeli Holocaust. Their project “Stop Murding Journalists” documents all of the journalists killed in Gaza by Israel, memorializing their names, the date they were killed, the method and location of their killing, who they were, and the reports they filed. The group has compiled its database from several Arabic and English-language sources, as well as original research.
The group also appears to have “the most comprehensive database” of journalists killed by Israel since Oct. 7, though they say their figures are likely an undercount.
“It feels weird to say it as ‘archiving,’ but we’re building out memorials to journalists that Israel murdered,” said ZO (a pseudonym, short for Zionism Observer), founder of Databases for Palestine, over voice call on Aug. 8. “And the reason we’re doing that is because we don’t believe there’s an honest database in the English language.”
A few of the leading independent sources tracking the journalists martyred by Israel’s genocide include the Shireen Observatory, named after the Israeli-assassinated Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate based in Gaza, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), and Genocide in Gaza (GiG).
(The Palestinian and international journalism organizations could not be reached for comment.)
“We let patterns speak for themselves,” writes Databases for Palestine, of some data collection and classification methods. “The sheer amount and rapid pace in which Israel kills Palestinian journalists—more than in any other documented military campaign ever recorded—indicates intent in the context of genocide.”
As the genocide has raged on, the footage coming out of Gaza has slowed.
“As Israel continues on its journalist mass murder spree, they’re killing the journalists who we’ve gotten to know really well and have come to depend on,” said ZO.
They continued,
It used to be that if there was a bombing in a certain part of Gaza, we could very easily know which journalist to go to, check their twitter account or their instagram account because they cover that area. And there used to be videos of the bombing itself. There used to be videos of the rescue effort and then the funerals, the hospitals. There used to be so many videos and that’s reduced to just a trickle with all of the murdering of journalists.
AI-assisted assassination campaign?
At dawn on May 13, freelance journalist Hassan Esleih lay on a hospital bed inside the burn unit at Nasser Medical Complex, recovering from an aerial bombing that killed two journalist colleagues and left him severely injured and burned on April 7. Above, an Israeli drone hovered, locked on target, and fired a missile. Esleih was killed instantly.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned Esleih’s “assassination” by Israel, stating “the ongoing, escalating targeting and killing of journalists leaves no doubt that these acts are deliberate, intended to intimidate and silence journalists and prevent them from conveying the truth to the world.”
For Databases for Palestine, Israel’s killing of 154 Palestinian journalists in their homes suggests a strong link to its AI/machine-learning military targeting software, particularly the infamous “Where’s Daddy” program. For a group relying on journalists on the ground to publish footage in order to archive and preserve documentation of the Israeli Holocaust, Israel’s campaign to kill every journalist in Gaza is a campaign to coverup the witnesses to their genocide.
“The massive use of the ‘Where’s Daddy’ system, programmed to alert the army to assassinate a target as they enter their home, often carried out with a 1-or 2-ton bomb, wiping out their whole family, also indicates intent—both to target journalists and also to commit genocide,” their site reads. “Half of the journalists that we memorialized (as of 3 April 2025) have been killed in their homes or tents of refuge along with their families.”
At this point, it’s impossible to know for sure how the Zionist AI-war machine is being used at any given moment or for any given decision to bomb a target.
Aside from continuous genocidal statements from Israeli officials and populace, such as “There are no innocent people” in Gaza, used to justify any-and-all bombing of Palestinian noncombatants and civilian infrastructure, it’s unclear how the IOF determines each specific target for bombing. This murkiness is primarily due to Israel’s untouchable impunity bestowed by its American, British, German, French, and European Union allies and funders—but mostly America.
Yet journalists, activists, and human rights organizations do have some clues and patterns to assess, given the Zionist rogue state’s militarized digital tools, which earned it the title of “a mass assassination factory.” Because of extensive reporting on Israel’s AI targeting software like The Gospel, Lavender, and “Where’s Daddy?” since April 2024, it’s widely known that the Israeli military puts Palestinians on AI-generated kill lists en masse, with no vetting or thought required, as The Guardian and +927 Magazine have both reported. The program Lavender, reportedly, assesses the likelihood of an individual’s suspected membership in armed resistance movements and marks suspected militants as bombing targets.
The Israeli military purports to track Palestinians—roughly 1:3 Palestinians—by collecting all signal traffic to and from the Gaza Strip. This includes using real-time approximate cell phone location data to inform military attack decisions. The AI program “Where’s Daddy” informs military operators when an individual marked as a bombing target enters a specific location, usually their family home, after the day’s activities or work. Hence, Israel’s cruel and sadistic ‘joke’ of a software name, “Where’s Daddy”—Dad arrived home, then disappeared in an explosion.
“Families were killed together in unprecedented numbers, and in their homes,” according to an Airwars report on Israel’s civilian targeting from December 2024. “On average, when civilians were killed alongside family members, at least 15 family members were killed.” This pattern has only continued to horrific degrees.
“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” an intelligence officer told +972 and Local Call in April 2024. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly branded journalists “Hamas Affiliates” and hospitals as “terrorist infrastructure” to legitimize bombing these targets, all crimes under international law. Sometimes officials will pre-name journalists as “Hamas” targets and invent lies about their connection to terrorism. Otherwise, Israel entirely denies that it targets journalists, only Hamas militants.
Yet most recently, according to reporting from +972 Magazine, the Israeli military created a so-called “Legitimization Cell” that’s tasked with identifying Gaza-based journalists and portraying them as undercover Hamas agents to weaken the rising global outrage about Israel’s assassination campaign.
Unfortunately, the most prestigious Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) regularly emphasizes certain Palestinian journalists killed by Israel as having worked for “Hamas-” or “Hezbollah-affiliated” Arabic-language news outlets within their datasets and individual profiles for slain journalists, echoing Zionist propaganda as if they were legitimate military targets.
What most Western audiences don’t understand—and what the Western media doesn’t say—is that Hamas is an elected government with civilian government officials that provide services to the Palestinian public, just like any democratic government. Al-Qassam is the military wing of the elected government. The government is made up of noncombatants and combatants, civilians and soldiers, illegitimate targets and legitimate ones.
Through this context, no journalistic institution can ethically, morally, and factually adopt the propaganda of a settler colonial racial state that has sought to reduce an entire population into “Hamas” terrorists, Hamas-affiliates, or future Hamas terrorists (in the case of children). Yet without making these distinctions or granting this context, Western journalistic institutions continue to dehumanize the Palestinian civilian population as military targets to be wiped off the map.
In the first year of the Israeli Holocaust, Palestinian journalists were ignored by Western media. Now, many are branded as legitimate “Hamas-Affiliates” by the most respected Western press freedom organization, CPJ, and by the lead génocidaire himself, Netanyahu.
Still, since December 2023, Databases for Palestine has continued to track the Palestinian journalists killed, preserving their names, their photos, and samples of their work. Among their other projects, this one seems the most somber, yet heartfelt for the group. This archival project, ZO tells me, is about building memory. Then, hopefully, it can lead to accountability.
“Without memory,” said ZO, “there can be no justice.”
“Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance,” wrote Anas Al-Sharif. [*]
Correction: this story was updated to reflect that ZO founded Databases for Palestine alone, not as a co-founder with anyone else.
Update: this story was updated to add the number of journalists’ family members killed in the same attacks by Israel.