The leaders of more than two dozen major media organizations, including The Associated Press, on Thursday called on Israel to lift a ban that has kept foreign journalists from independently reporting from Gaza since the war began in 2023 — a barrier that remains in place even as a ceasefire is now in its seventh month.
“Being on the ground is essential. It allows journalists to question official accounts on all sides, to speak directly with civilians and report back what they witness firsthand,” the executives said in a statement released through the local foreign press association. “That is why news organizations send their reporters into the field, often at great personal risk.”
The signatories — from the AP and the BBC and Sky News to CNN, Reuters, German news agency dpa, The New York Times and The Washington Post — said the Israeli government has so far not responded to their efforts to discuss the situation. The statement was released at 5 a.m. ET on Thursday, during Press Freedom Week.
Israel initially said the ban was necessary because foreign journalists allowed into Gaza could give away the positions of Israeli soldiers and endanger them. Other rationales have included that as an active battle zone, it was too dangerous. The army has occasionally brought foreign reporters in on highly controlled trips, but media outlets want independent access.
“The heaviest fighting is over and there is a ceasefire in place,” the editors’ statement said. “The hostages have come home. Journalists do not pose a threat to Israeli troops. There is a mechanism in place—however restrictive—that allows aid workers to enter and exit the territory. Why not journalists?”
Efforts to force the issue through legal action have stalled. The Foreign Press Association, which represents international media in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, has been waiting on a decision from the Israeli Supreme Court on a petition for independent access to Gaza. That action was filed in 2024, but a ruling has been repeatedly delayed, most recently in January.
With foreign journalists kept out, coverage of conditions on the ground has been possible only for local Palestinian journalists. While covering war would be fraught for any reporter, the Palestinian correspondents have also had to experience it on a personal level — their homes destroyed, their loved ones killed.
When access to food became severely restricted last year, the hunger became so acute that the Agence France-Presse news agency in July raised an alarm about their Palestinian colleagues’ continued survival, a concern echoed by the AP and Reuters for the reporters they work with in Gaza.
The editors raised that point in the statement Thursday, saying “this has pushed the responsibility for covering this devastating war and its aftermath almost entirely on our Palestinian colleagues. … They should not have to shoulder this burden alone, and they should be protected.”
The dangers are not only from hunger and displacement. Well over 200 journalists and media workers have been killed in the conflict, according to a tally from the Committee to Protect Journalists, far more than in conflicts elsewhere like the Russia-Ukraine war.
Among those killed was Mariam Dagga, a 33-year-old visual journalist who worked as a freelancer for the AP and other news organizations. She and four other journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri and Moaz Abu Taha, a freelance journalist who worked with Reuters, were among those killed last August in an Israeli strike on a medical facility known as a place where journalists gathered.
The AP’s reporting on the strike raised questions about the rationale used by the Israeli government to carry out the action. The AP and Reuters later issued a statement calling on Israel to explain what took place and what steps would be taken to protect reporters. The Israeli military says it is still investigating.
The editors’ statement on Thursday closed with a direct appeal: “Freedom of the press is a basic value in any open society. It is time for the delays to end. Let us into Gaza.”