[[link removed]]

BREAKING NEW RECORDS, ISRAEL SEES UNPRECEDENTED SPIKE IN MEDIA
CENSORSHIP  
[[link removed]]


 

Haggai Matar
May 2, 2025
+972 Magazine
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ In 2024, Israel's military censor banned 1,635 articles from
publication and partially redacted another 6,265 — part of a wider
assault on freedom of press. _

The front pages of newspapers in Israel at a shop in Jerusalem during
the judicial overhaul, July 25, 2023., Chaim Goldbeg/Flash90

 

In 2024, military censorship in Israel reached the most extreme levels
since +972 Magazine began collecting data in 2011. Over the course of
the year, the censor completely banned the publication of 1,635
articles and partially censored another 6,265. On average, the censor
intervened in about 21 news reports per day last year — more than
double the previous peak of about 10 daily interventions recorded
during the last war in Gaza in 2014 (Operation Protective Edge), and
over three times the non-war-time average of 6.2 per day.

These figures were provided by the military censor in response to a
joint request from +972 Magazine and the Movement for the Freedom of
Information in Israel, ahead of World Press Freedom Day.

While the military censor does not disclose the reasons behind each
intervention, Israel’s ongoing war of destruction in Gaza, as well
as its conflicts in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, is likely the
main reason behind this record surge in censorship.

The escalation is reflected not only in the sheer volume of activity
by the censor, but also in higher rejection rate of submitted
materials, and in the increased frequency of outright bans (as opposed
to partial redactions).

Under Israeli law, any article dealing with the broadly-defined
category of “security issues” must undergo military censorship
review, and editorial teams are responsible for deciding which piece
to submit based on their own judgement. 

When the censor intervenes, media outlets are forbidden from
indicating that censorship has taken place, meaning most of its
activity remains hidden from the public. No other self-described
“Western democracy” has a comparable institution.

Graphic showing number of articles redacted by the Israeli military
censor from 2011 to 2024. (+972/Local Call)

It should be noted that, under this law, +972 Magazine is legally
compelled to submit materials for review. For more on our stance
regarding military censorship, click here
[[link removed]].

‘THE PUBLIC DESERVES TO KNOW WHAT HAS BEEN HIDDEN’

In 2024, Israeli news organizations submitted 20,770 news items to the
military censor for review — nearly double the previous year’s
total [[link removed]],
and four times the number in 2022. The censor intervened in 38 percent
of these cases, a full seven percentage points higher than the
previous peak recorded in 2023. Blanket rejections of entire news
articles accounted for 20 percent of all interventions, up from 18
percent in 2023. In the preceding years, the average stood at just 11
percent.

Israeli news outlet i24 reported
[[link removed]] on Sunday
that Chief Military Censor Brigadier General Kobi Mandelblit asked the
Attorney General to investigate Israeli journalists who allegedly
circumvented censorship law by sharing restricted information with
foreign media outlets. The Attorney General rejected the request.

The military censor is not obligated by law to respond to Freedom of
Information requests, and it voluntarily provided the figures above.
However, it refused to provide additional data we requested,
including: a breakdown of the data by month, by media outlet, and by
reason for intervention; details about cases where it proactively
ordered media outlets to remove content that hadn’t been submitted
for review; and any records of administrative or criminal proceedings
against censorship violations. (To the best of our knowledge, no
enforcement action of this kind has been taken so far.)

Additionally, while the military censor would previously provide data
on censorship in books — typically those written by former members
of the Israeli security establishment — it now withholds this
information. And over the past decade, it has also been reviewing and
intervening in online publications by the State Archives. In some
cases, it has even blocked the release of documents that had already
been deemed harmless by the archive’s security experts and were
previously accessible to the public. This act of “re-concealment”
has faced widespread criticism
[[link removed]].

Last year, the State Archives submitted 2,436 documents for censor
review. While the censor stated that “the vast majority” were
approved for publication unchanged, it consistently refuses to
disclose how many archival documents it “re-concealed” from the
public.

Graphic showing number of articles sent to the Israeli military censor
from 2011 to 2024. (+972/Local Call)

Or Sadan, an attorney from the Movement for the Freedom of Information
and the director of the Freedom of Information Clinic at the College
of Management Academic Studies, told +972 that while he was not
surprised by the surge in censorship last year, he was hopeful that
“the publication of this data would help minimize the use of
censorship tools which, while sometimes necessary, are also dangerous
when it comes to the public’s access to information.

“Even if certain information cannot be published during an
emergency, the public deserves to know what has been hidden from
them,” he explained. “Censorship means the concealment of
information that a journalist believed the public had a right to know.
During times of war, many people already feel that they’re not being
told everything, and therefore it is appropriate to review censorship
decisions retrospectively.”

A WAR ON FREE PRESS

Beyond the unprecedented spike in military censorship, this year’s
World Press Freedom Day  arrives as a grim milestone for Israeli
journalism. In 2024, Israel ranked a dismal 101 out of 180 (a drop of
4 places from the previous year’s ranking) in the Reporters Without
Borders Press Freedom Index [[link removed]]; that
ranking has now dropped even further to 112. This evaluation only
reflects the state of journalism within Israel, without factoring in
the mass killing of journalists in Gaza.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists
[[link removed]],
at least 168 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been
killed in Gaza by the Israeli military during the war, more than in
any other recorded violent conflict in recent decades. Other
organizations place the number as high as 232
[[link removed]].
In collaborative investigations with Forbidden Stories, +972 revealed
a pattern of Gazan journalists killed by the army merely for
operating drones
[[link removed]], or
being attacked by army drones
[[link removed]] when
clearly identified as press. Additionally, Israel treats journalists
working for media outlets affiliated with Hamas as legitimate
military targets
[[link removed]],
and on more than one occasion claimed
[[link removed]] that
other journalists it killed were connected to Hamas, usually without
presenting any evidence.

But journalists in Gaza don’t just have to contend with the constant
threat of death from Israeli bombardment, while also often suffering
hunger, thirst, and displacement. They also face suppression
from Hamas itself
[[link removed]],
which pressures journalists who criticize the organization or cover
protests against it. Israel has compounded this dire situation by
blocking all foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip for over
a year and a half — a move upheld by the Israeli Supreme Court that
many journalists around the world condemned as both a severe blow to
press freedom and a deliberate effort to conceal what is happening in
Gaza.

At the same time, Israel has been systematically arresting and
imprisoning Palestinian journalists
[[link removed]] from
both Gaza and the West Bank, often without charges, as a form of
punishment
[[link removed]] for
critical reporting. This repression has accelerated during the war, as
seen in the banning of media outlets such as Al-Mayadeen and
Al-Jazeera from operating in Israel.

The government has simultaneously come after Israel’s own free
press: moving to shut down public broadcaster “Kan,” financially
strangling the liberal daily Haaretz, and making deliberate efforts to
weaken long-established media outlets, all while bankrolling new
pro-government outlets like Channel 14
[[link removed]] with
public funds. Beyond this, the government has imposed severe
restrictions on publishing the identities of soldiers suspected of war
crimes, and ongoing incitement against journalists by lawmakers and
public figures affiliated with the Netanyahu government have led to
several violent attacks on reporters. 

And yet, the most devastating blow to Israeli journalism hasn’t come
from government censorship, but from the newsrooms’ betrayal of
their core mission: to inform the public of the truth about what is
happening around them. Israeli journalists, even those who once
expressed remorse for not covering what was happening in Gaza in
previous wars, have been deliberately obscuring the bombed hospitals,
starved children, and mass graves that the world sees daily. 

Instead of bearing witness to the truth of the war, or amplifying the
voices of Gaza-based journalists (let alone showing solidarity with
colleagues targeted by their state’s army), most Israeli journalists
have enlisted in the war propaganda effort — to the point of joining
combat troops and actively participating in demolishing buildings
[[link removed]] — and freely platform direct
calls for genocide, starvation, and other war crimes. This isn’t
coercion, it’s complicity. The censor didn’t erase Gaza’s
horrors from Israeli screens — the journalists and editors did.

_A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local
Call. Read it __here_
[[link removed]]_._

_HAGGAI MATAR is an award-winning Israeli journalist and political
activist, and is the executive director of +972 MAGAZINE._

_OUR TEAM HAS BEEN DEVASTATED BY THE HORRIFIC EVENTS OF THIS LATEST
WAR. THE WORLD IS REELING FROM ISRAEL’S UNPRECEDENTED ONSLAUGHT ON
GAZA, INFLICTING MASS DEVASTATION AND DEATH UPON BESIEGED
PALESTINIANS, AS WELL AS THE ATROCIOUS ATTACK AND KIDNAPPINGS BY HAMAS
IN ISRAEL ON OCTOBER 7. OUR HEARTS ARE WITH ALL THE PEOPLE AND
COMMUNITIES FACING THIS VIOLENCE. _

_We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The
bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to
engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed
by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on
Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is
ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence
Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies._

_This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the
past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and
militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized
siege on Gaza._

_We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need
your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity
of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians
and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the
fight of their lives._

_CAN WE COUNT ON YOUR SUPPORT 
[[link removed]]? +972 MAGAZINE IS A LEADING
MEDIA VOICE OF THIS MOVEMENT, A DESPERATELY NEEDED PLATFORM WHERE
PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI JOURNALISTS, ACTIVISTS, AND THINKERS CAN
REPORT ON AND ANALYZE WHAT IS HAPPENING, GUIDED BY HUMANISM, EQUALITY,
AND JUSTICE. JOIN US._

_BECOME A +972 MEMBER TODAY [[link removed]]_

* Israel
[[link removed]]
* media
[[link removed]]
* Palestinian journalists
[[link removed]]
* Israeli army
[[link removed]]
* freedom of expression
[[link removed]]
* Local Call
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]