CAMERA Urges News Outlets To Revisit CPJ Gaza Journalist Death Tally After Hamas, PIJ Notices

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) announced on June 25 that it was conducting a full review of its database of media workers killed in the Gaza Strip after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad mourning notices confirmed that several individuals listed as journalists were operatives in the terrorist organizations.

“07:55 05:31 01:22 03:09 52:05 01:31 01:46 01:46 26:50 01:19 20 Minutes with AFP Published June 20, 2026 at 9:07 PM • Updated June 20, 2026 at 10:09 PM The Al Jazeera channel, based in Qatar, announced on Saturday that one of its journalists had been killed in an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip”

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CAMERA said in a press release, “After a tainted tally, it’s time to critically cover the Committee to Protect Journalists and help protect journalism from CPJ,” and it urged major news organizations to revisit their reporting based on CPJ casualty data.

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CAMERA also said the revelations raised serious questions about reporting by major international media outlets that had relied on CPJ’s casualty figures and allegations without sufficient scrutiny, citing CBS, the BBC, Reuters, The Washington Post, CNN, The Associated Press, PBS, MS Now and The New York Times.

CAMERA director Tamar Sternthal said, “It is the CPJ that has long put journalists at personal risk by enabling terrorists to masquerade as journalists,” and it criticized interviews in which CPJ officials accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists.

The dispute is tied to CPJ’s decision-making process, with CAMERA pointing to Sternthal’s claim that CPJ’s board includes “Julie Pace (Associated Press), Sally Buzbee (Reuters), Lydia Polgreen (New York Times), Rebecca Blumenstein (NBC News), Phil Chetwynd (Agence France Presse), and David Remnick (New Yorker).”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) moved to contain backlash over fears Gaza and Lebanese reporters killed by Israel could be erased from its casualty database, voting on Wednesday to affirm its existing definition of “who is a journalist.”

CPJ board chair Jacob Weisberg said, “It is not true that CPJ planned to change our definition of who is a journalist to exclude slain Palestinian and Lebanese press killed in the Israel-Gaza war,” adding that the review triggered alarm among Palestinian journalists, press freedom advocates and critics of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Al Jazeera Centre for Studies

The Middle East Monitor reported that the vote came after days of criticism over reports that CPJ was considering whether to revisit its criteria, with critics warning that any narrowing could serve Israeli efforts to smear Palestinian reporters after killing them.

Former board member and Drop Site News publisher Nika Soon-Shiong warned that reopening the question of “who is a journalist” carries “profound implications,” and she argued the database “should remain insulated from political pressure to redefine who deserves recognition for their role in history.”

The controversy also drew accusations from Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd, who accused CPJ of moving to exclude Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who worked for government-funded media outlets and claimed the move followed pressure from The Washington Free Beacon.

Beyond the CPJ database dispute, multiple sources describe ongoing deaths of journalists in Gaza and competing claims about targeting, with UN News citing the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) that between October 2023 and mid-December 2025, “289 journalists have lost their lives during Israeli military operations in Gaza.”

UN News also said OHCHR noted that repression is intensifying, including the arrest of “more than 200 Palestinian journalists,” and it quoted Ajith Sunghay saying, “These abuses sow fear and despair and deprive Palestinians of any means to inform the world of the reality of their lives.”

In a separate incident reported by France 24, Al Jazeera announced on Saturday that one of its journalists, Ahmed Wishah, was killed in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli strike, and it said the network rejected Israeli accusations that he was a member of Hamas.

France 24 reported that the Israeli army said Wishah was killed during a precise strike with two Hamas fighters and that he had served as a sniper in the Islamist movement, while it also stated that a spokesperson provided no evidence to support the allegations.

The stakes of the dispute are reflected in the way CPJ’s casualty accounting is contested, with JNS.org arguing that “Multiple leading media outlets had featured, often without qualification or challenge, CPJ’s now-discredited data on 2025 fatalities,” and with Le Monde reporting that CPJ’s February 25 report assigned responsibility to the State of Israel in two-thirds of cases, with “129 journalists and press workers” killed in 2025.