Israel Lists 170 Killed in Gaza It Says Were Militants Posing as Media Workers

The Israeli military has published an investigation saying that 170 people killed in the war in Gaza who had presented themselves as journalists were actually militants, rebutting accusations that it targeted journalists in violation of international law. Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the Israeli military spokesman, said Thursday that Israel had found more than 100 members of Hamas and dozens of operatives from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as other militant groups, who had been labeled members of the media were actually combatants.

“Soldiers were criticized before the facts were checked,” General Defrin said. The military published a graphic with the faces of men it said had duped the international community, along with a website with some findings about all those it said were “exposed.” Some of the entries in the Israeli report have photos, social media posts or records said to have been found in Gaza purporting to show membership in a militant group, while others are based on intelligence the Israeli military says it cannot share.

The Committee to Protect Journalists lists 190 deaths of Palestinian reporters and media workers that it has documented during the war. It attributes one to a Palestinian militant group, making Israeli forces “responsible for the vast majority of killings of journalists and media workers worldwide since 2023” it says. About 78 people appear on both the Israeli military’s list and C.P.J.’s, meaning they disagree about whether the people were really journalists or militants.

But for the most part, the two lists do not overlap — more than half of the people Israel says used journalism as mere cover are not claimed by C.P.J. as killed media workers, and more than half of the media workers C.P.J. says were killed were not disputed by Israel. Neither list has been independently verified by The New York Times. Journalist groups like C.P.J., the United Nations and news organizations have accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza.

Israel has mostly blocked reporters and outside investigators from entering the enclave, making what happens there opaque to the world. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .