A record 129 press workers were killed worldwide in 2025, more in one year than in any of the previous three decades for which the Committee to Protect Journalists has collected data. The previous record was set in 2024. For both 2024 and 2025, the Israeli military was responsible for two-thirds of all press killings. “This shows the systematic pattern that Israel is using to silence the journalists, whether by killing them, targeting them, imprisoning them, intimidating them, and also smearing them,” says Sara Qudah, Middle East and North Africa regional director at the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ also documented the killings of journalists in Ukraine, Mexico, Yemen, and more.
