Today, 1 September 2025, is being marked as a Black Monday following the latest deadly strikes by the Israeli army against journalists in the Gaza Strip as part of a worldwide action by the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders and the community politics organisation Avaaz.
On August 25, one of these strikes targeted a building in the al-Nasser medical complex in central Gaza, a known workplace for reporters, killing five journalists and staff members of local and international media outlets such as Reuters and the Associated Press.
Two weeks earlier, on the night of August 10, an Israeli strike killed six reporters, including Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who was the intended target.
Reporters Without Borders . . . “This campaign calls on world leaders to do their duty: stop the Israeli army from committing these crimes against journalists.” Image: RSF
According to RSF data, more than 210 journalists have been killed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip in nearly 23 months of Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territory.
At least 56 of them were intentionally targeted by the Israeli army or killed while doing their job. This ongoing massacre of Palestinian journalists requires a large-scale operation highly visible to the general public.
With this unprecedented mobilisation planned for today, RSF renews its call for urgent protection for Palestinian media professionals in the Gaza Strip, a demand endorsed by over 200 media outlets and organisations in June.
Independent access
The NGO also calls for foreign press to be granted independent access to the Strip, which Israeli authorities have so far denied.
“The Israeli army killed five journalists in two strikes on Monday, August 25. Just two weeks earlier, it similarly killed six journalists in a single strike,” said Thibaut Bruttin, executive director of RSF.
“Since 7 October 2023, more than 220 Palestinian journalists have been killed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip.
“We reject this deadly new norm, which week after week brings new crimes against Palestinian journalists that go unpunished. We say it loud and clear: at the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed.
“More than 150 media outlets worldwide have joined together for a major operation on Monday, 1 September, at the call of RSF and Avaaz.
“This campaign calls on world leaders to do their duty: stop the Israeli army from committing these crimes against journalists, resume the evacuation of the journalists who wish to leave Gaza, and ensure the foreign press has independent access to the Palestinian territory.
RSF accuses Israel of targeting the press Video: Al Jazeera
More than 250 media outlets in over 50 countries are taking part in the operation on Monday, 1 September.
They include numerous daily newspapers and news websites: Mediapart (France), Al Jazeera (Qatar), The Independent (United Kingdom), +972 Magazine (Israel/Palestine), Local Call (Israel/Palestine), InfoLibre (Spain), Forbidden Stories (France), Frankfurter Rundschau (Germany), Der Freitag (Germany), RTVE (Spain), L’Humanité (France), The New Arab (United Kingdom), Daraj (Lebanon), New Bloom (Taiwan), Photon Media (Hong Kong), La Voix du Centre (Cameroon), Guinée Matin (Guinea), The Point (Gambia), L’Orient Le Jour (Lebanon), Media Today (South Korea), N1 (Serbia), KOHA (Kosovo), Public Interest Journalism Lab (Ukraine), Il Dubbio (Italy), Intercept Brasil (Brazil), Agência Pública (Brazil), Le Soir (Belgium), La Libre (Belgium), Le Desk (Morocco), Semanario Brecha (Uruguay), Asia Pacific Report, Evening Report and Stuff (New Zealand) and many others.
Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.
Journalist, media academic and author Dr David Robie, convenor of Pacific Media Watch and who is one of the signatories to the media industry open letter, speaking among other press freedom advocates at the Palestinian rally in Auckland's Te Komititanga Square last Saturday. Image: Del Abcede/APMN
Asia Pacific Report
About 120 journalists, film makers, actors, media workers and academics have today called on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and two senior cabinet ministers in an open letter to “act decisively” to protect Gaza journalists and a free press.
“These are principles to which New Zealand has always laid claim and which are now under grave threat in Gaza and the West Bank,” the signatories said in the letter about Israel’s war on Gaza.
The plea was addressed to Luxon, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith.
New Zealand protesters over the Israeli killings of Palestinian journalists in Gaza carry symbolic bodies in the name of the dead media workers at a rally at Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square last weekend. Image: Bruce King
Among the signatories are many well known media personalities such as filmmaker Gemma Gracewood, actor Lucy Lawless, film director Kim Webby, broadcaster Alison Mau, and comedian and documentarian Te Radar, and journalist Mereana Hond.
The letter also calls on the government to urgently condemn the killing of 13 Palestinian journalists and media workers this month as the death toll in the 22-month war has reached almost 63,000 — more than 18,000 of them children.
Global protests against the war and the forced starvation in the besieged enclave have been growing steadily over the past few weeks with more than 500,000 people taking part in Israel last week.
Commitment to safety
The letter urged Luxon and the government to:
1. Publicly reaffirm New Zealand’s commitment to the safety of journalists worldwide and make clear this protection applies in every conflict zone, including Gaza.
2. Reiterate the Media Freedom Coalition call for access for international press, ensuring safety, aid and crucial reporting are guaranteed; paired with New Zealand’s existing call for a ceasefire and safe humanitarian access corridors.
3. Back international action already underway, by publicly affirming support for International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations into attacks on journalists anywhere in the world, and by advocating that the United Nations adopt an international convention for the safety of journalists and media workers so that states parties meet their obligations under international law.
4. Formally confirm that New Zealand’s free press and human rights principles apply to Palestinian journalists and media workers, as they do to all others.
The letter said these measures were “consistent with New Zealand’s values, our history of independent foreign policy, and the rules-based international order we have always claimed to champion, and for which our very future as a country is reliant upon”.
It added: “They do not require us to choose sides and they uphold the principle that a free press and those who embody it must never be targeted for doing their jobs.”
Condemn the killings
The recent deaths brought the number of Palestinian journalists and media workers killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to at least 219 at the time of writing, said the letter.
“Many more are injured and missing. Many of those killed were clearly identified as members of the press. Some were killed alongside their families,” it said.
The letter called on the government to urgently condemn the killings of:
● Al Jazeera journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, along with freelance journalist Mohammad Al-Khalidi and freelance cameraman Momen Aliwa, who were targeted and killed in, or as a result of, an August 10 airstrike on their tent in Gaza City.
● Correspondents Hussam al-Masri, Hatem Khaled, Mariam Abu Daqqa, Mohammad Salama, Ahmed Abu Azi and Moaz Abu Taha, all killed in a strike on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis on August 25.
● Journalist and academic Hassan Douhan, killed in Khan Younis on August 25.
“From Malcolm Ross to Margaret Moth, Peter Arnett to Mike McRoberts, New Zealand has a proud history of war correspondents. The same international laws that have protected them are meant to protect all journalists, wherever they work,” said the letter.
“Today, those protections are being violated with impunity.
“Our media colleagues are being murdered, and we have a duty to speak up.”
As journalists, editors, producers, writers, documentary-makers, media workers and storytellers, said the letter, “we believe in the essential role of a free press.
“These killings are in violation of international rules-based order, including humanitarian law, and are intended to erase witnesses to the truth itself. These media professionals are doing their jobs under extremely challenging conditions, and are civilians worthy of protection under human rights laws.
“This is not only a matter of professional solidarity, this is a matter of principle. Journalists are civilians. They are witnesses to history. They deserve the same protection anywhere in the world.”
“We urge you to lead, knowing you have the voices of Aotearoa’s storytellers and history-keepers standing with you.”
The organiser of the letter, Gemma Gracewood, a member of Women in Film and Television, said the letter had been “open for all Aotearoa media professionals to sign in solidarity with our international colleagues”.
She added: “Our mahi depends upon these freedoms and protections.
“[The letter] has been drafted with insights from a human rights lawyer, a senior journalist and a crisis comms professional in alignment with International Federation of Journalists statements, and sits alongside the important statements made by NZ media-member organisations.”
"It sure was selfless of the Iranians to orchestrate these attacks against their own interests, solely to benefit the interests of Israel, just as hundreds of thousands of Australians are filling the streets in protest against Israel’s genocidal atrocities, and just as Israel prepares for war with Iran." Image: caitlinjohnstone.com.au
COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced that Canberra will be expelling the Iranian ambassador and legislating to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a “terrorist group”.
Albanese says the move is because an assessment by the intelligence agency ASIO has concluded that Iran used a “complex web of proxies” to orchestrate two antisemitic arson attacks in Australia in order to “undermine social cohesion and sow discord”.
As you might expect, not one shred of evidence has been provided for this assertion, much less the giant mountain of rock-solid proof required for intelligence agency credibility in a post-Iraq invasion world.
Evidence-free assertions made by the government are not “revelations”, and to frame them as such is journalistic malpractice.
The Israeli government has publicly claimed credit for pressuring Albanese to take these actions, after Netanyahu personally inserted himself into Australian affairs by repeatedly publicly expressing outrage about alleged antisemitic incidents in Australia.
21 questions about Australia’s Iran claim. Video: Caitlin Johnstone
Anyway, here are 21 questions we should all be asking about these new claims:
1. Where is the evidence?
2. May we please see the evidence?
3. Why can’t we see the evidence?
4. In what way would it benefit Iran to orchestrate antisemitic attacks in Australia?
5. In what way would it benefit Iran to “undermine social cohesion and sow discord” in Australia?
6. Please explain how orchestrating antisemitic attacks in Australia would advance Iranian interests more than the interests of some other state, like, say, just for example, Israel?
7. What foreign intelligence agencies were involved in helping ASIO gather the information it used to make its assessment about the Iranian involvement in these incidents?
8. What were the names of all the people in the “complex web of proxies” allegedly used to conduct these attacks which ASIO claims ultimately traced back to Tehran?
9. Does Anthony Albanese’s announcement that Iran is staging antisemitic attacks in Australia have anything to do with Benjamin Netanyahu’s stern letter to Albanese a week earlier demanding that the prime minister take action on alleged antisemitic incidents in Australia by the deadline of September 23?
10. Does Albanese’s announcement that Iran is staging antisemitic attacks in Australia have anything to do with the fact that Israel is reportedly very close to initiating another war with Iran?
11. Does Albanese’s announcement that Iran is staging antisemitic attacks in Australia have anything to do with the way Australians have been filling the streets in massive numbers to protest the Gaza holocaust?
12. Why kick out the Iranian ambassador and designate the IRGC as a terrorist group while keeping the Israeli ambassador in Australia and doing absolutely nothing to stop the IDF during an active genocide?
14. Which state would benefit more from fomenting hostilities between Canberra and Tehran: Iran or Israel?
15. Are we being asked to forget the way Australian intelligence services facilitated the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, or simply to ignore this?
16. Are we being asked to forget the fact that we’ve been lied to and manipulated about all things involving Israel for the last two years, or simply to ignore this?
17. Are we being asked to forget that the claims about “antisemitic attacks” in Australia have been exposed as bogus or riddled with glaring plot holesover and over again since 2023, or simply to ignore this?
18. Are we being asked to forget that supporters of Israel have an extensive history of staging false antisemitic incidents in order to advance the interests of the Zionist state, or simply to ignore this?
19. Does the Australian government believe Australians are all complete slobbering idiots?
2o. Does the Australian government believe Australians are all high on ayahuasca?
21. What specific mental illness, intellectual disability, or chemically-induced altered state of consciousness does the Australian government believe Australians are all suffering from which would cause us to accept these unfounded assertions as true?
Of course none of these questions will ever be answered by anyone with real power. The reason it’s ASIO telling us this happened instead of police or investigative journalists is because police and journalists are expected to lay out the evidence for their assertions, while intelligence agencies are not.
Whenever the powerful present us with evidence-free incendiary claims of significant consequence, I like to remind my readers of Hitchens’ razor: “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
It sure was selfless of the Iranians to orchestrate these attacks against their own interests, solely to benefit the interests of Israel, just as hundreds of thousands of Australians are filling the streets in protest against Israel’s genocidal atrocities, and just as Israel prepares for war with Iran.
That sure was kind and charitable of them.
Bunch of top blokes, those Iranians. It’s too bad they’re terrorists now.
New Zealand pro-Palestine protesters in Auckland carry mock "bodies" today representing Gazan journalists killed by the Israeli military. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Three media commentators addressed the 98th week of New Zealand solidarity rallies for Palestine in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland today, criticising the quality of news reporting about the world’s biggest genocide crisis this century.
Speakers at other locations around the country also condemned what they said was biased media coverage.
The critics said they were affirming their humanity in solidarity with the people of Palestine as the United Nations this week officially declared a man-made famine in Gaza because of Israel’s weaponisation of starvation against the besieged enclave with 2 million population.
More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the 22 months of conflict – mostly women and children.
One of the major criticisms at the Palestine Solidarity Network (PSNA) organised rally was that the New Zealand media has consistently framed the series of massacres as a “war” between Israel and Hamas instead of a military land grab based on ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The first speaker, Mick Hall, a former news agency journalist who is currently an independent political columnist, said the way news media had covered these crimes had “undoubtedly affected public opinion”.
“As Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza devolved into a full-blown genocide, our media continued to frame Israel’s attack on Gaza as a war against Hamas, while they uncritically recorded Western leaders’ claims that Israel was exercising a ‘right of self-defence’,” he said.
NZ media lacking context
New Zealand news outlets continued to “present an ahistorical account of what has transpired since October 7, shorn of context, ignoring Israel’s history of occupation, of colonial violence against the Palestinian people”.
“An implicit understanding that violence and ethnic cleansing forms part of the organisational DNA of Zionism should have shaped how news stories were framed and presented over the past 22 months.
Independent journalist Mick Hall speaking at today’s rally . . . newsrooms “failed to robustly document the type of evidence of genocide now before the International Court of Justice.”
“Instead, newsroom leaders took their lead from our politicians, from the foreign policy positions from those in Washington and other aligned centres of power.”
Hall said newsrooms had not taken a “neutral position” — “nor are they attempting to keep us informed in any meaningful sense”.
“They failed to robustly document the type of evidence of genocide now before the International Court of Justice.
“By wilfully declining to adjudicate between contested claims of Israel and its victims, they failed to meet the informational needs of democratic citizenship in a most profound way.
“They lowered the standard of news, instead of upholding it, as they so sanctimoniously tell us.”
Evans slams media ‘apologists’
Award-winning New Zealand cartoonist Malcolm Evans congratulated the crowd of about 300 protesters for “being on the right side of history”.
“As we remember more than 240 journalists, camera and media people, murdered, assassinated, by Zionist Israel — who they were and the principles they stood for we should not forget our own media,” he said.
Cartoonist and commentator Malcolm Evans . . . “It wasn’t our reporters living in a tent in Gaza whose lives, hopes and dreams were blasted into oblivion because they exposed Zionist Israel’s evil intent.” Image: Asia Pacific Report
“The media which, contrary to the principles they claim to stand for, tried to tell us Zionist Israeli genocide was justified.”
“Whatever your understanding of the conflict in Palestine, which has brought you here today and for these past many months, it won’t have come first from the mainstream media.
“It wasn’t our reporters living in a tent in Gaza whose lives, hopes and dreams were blasted into oblivion because they exposed Zionist Israel’s evil intent.
“The reporters whose witness to Zionist Israel’s war crimes sparked your outrage were not from the ranks of Western media apologists.”
Describing the mainstream media as “pimps for propaganda”, Evans said that in any “decent world” he would not be standing there — instead the New Zealand journalists organisation would be, “expressing solidarity with their murdered Middle Eastern colleagues”.
Palestinian journalists owed debt
David Robie, author and editor of Asia Pacific Report, said the world owed a huge debt to the Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
“Although global media freedom groups have conflicting death toll numbers, it is generally accepted that more than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed — many of them deliberately targeted by the IDF [Israeli Defence Force], even killing their families as well.”
Journalist and author Dr David Robie . . . condemned New Zealand media for republishing some of the Israeli “counter-narratives” without question. Image: Del Abcede/APR
Dr Robie stressed that the Palestinian journalist death toll had eclipsed that of the combined media deaths of the American Civil War, First and Second World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cambodian War, Yugoslavia Wars, Afghan War, and the ongoing Ukraine War.
“The Palestinian death toll of journalists is greater than the combined death toll of all these other wars,” he said. “This is shocking and shameful.”
He pointed out that when Palestinian reporter Anas al-Sharif was assassinated on August 10, his entire television crew was also wiped out ahead of the Israeli invasion of Gaza City — “eliminating the witnesses, that’s what Israel does”.
Six journalists died that day in an air strike, four of them from Al Jazeera, which is banned in Israel.
Dr Robie also referred to “disturbing reports” about the existence of an IDF military unit — the so-called “legitimisation cell” — tasked with smearing and targeting journalists in Gaza with fake information.
He condemned the New Zealand media for republishing some of these “counter-narratives” without question.
“This is shameful because news editors know that they are dealing with an Israeli government with a history of lying and disinformation; a government that is on trial with the International Court of Justice for ‘plausible genocide’; and a prime minister wanted on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant to answer charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said.
“Why would you treat this government as a credible source without scrutiny?”
Mock media cemetery
The protest included a mock pavement cemetery with about 20 “bodies” of murdered journalists and blue “press” protective vests, and placards declaring “Killing journalists is killing the truth”, “Genocide: Zionism’s final solution” and “Zionism shames Jewish tradition”.
The demonstrators marched around Te Komititanga Square, pausing at strategic moments as Palestinians read out the names of the hundreds of killed Gazan journalists to pay tribute to their courage and sacrifice.
Author and journalist Saige England . . . “The truth is of a genocide carried out by bombs and snipers, and now there is another weapon.” Image: Claire Coveney/APR
In Ōtautahi Christchurch today, one of the speakers at the Palestine solidarity rally there was author and journalist Saige England, who called on journalists to “speak the truth on Gaza”.
“The truth of a genocide carried out by bombs and snipers, and now there is another weapon — slow starvation, mutilation by hunger,” she said.
“The truth is a statement by Israel that journalists are ‘the enemy’. Israel says journalists are the enemy, what does that tell you?
“Why? Because it has carried out invasions, apartheid and genocide for decades.”
Some of the mock bodies today representing the slaughtered Gazan journalists with Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif in the forefront. Image: APR
"When Anas al-Sharif was murdered, his entire crew was also wiped out ahead of the Israeli invasion of Gaza City. Removing the witnesses. It is an Israeli strategy. Kill and silence the witnesses." Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
By David Robie
Last Saturday, 16 August 2025, I spoke at this Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) rally in the wake of the shocking targeted assassination of six journalists — four of them working for the Al Jazeera network — and another person in Gaza City.
That horrendous and brutal murder with an air strike on a media tent close to al-Shifa hospital on August 10 has reverberated around the world with outrage and condemnation.
The much loved Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif — who had been threatened for months by the Israeli military — was among the victims.
However, since then two more Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza and today we honour all those journalists who have been risking their lives reporting the truth day by day — and who have become martyrs and honoured around the world.
Although global media freedom groups have conflicting death toll numbers, it is generally accepted that more than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed – many of them targeted by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), even killing their families as well.
This death toll of Gazan journalists is higher than the combined deaths of journalists covering the following:
The American Civil War
First World War
Second World War
Korean War
Vietnam War
Cambodian War
Yugoslav War
Afghan War; and the
Ongoing Ukraine War
The combined death toll of Gazan journalists is greater than all these wars together. Let that sink in. This is shocking and shameful!
Why these atrocities?
Why are the Israelis doing this along with all their other atrocities in this horrendous genocide, which rather than describing it as a “war” it is really continuous and relentless waves of massacres?
Very simply, the answer is because they can get away with it. Gaza is a massive crime scene and the Israeli military are systematically killing the witnesses with impunity.
According to investigative journalist Richard Sanders, of Double Down News, the Israelis are simply being allowed to do this.
“Because of the way it is reported in the West, in the way that politicians react to it in the West, it becomes normalised,” he says.
For example, politicians talking about a question of proportionality, is it justified to kill five journalists when you are only targeting one. Instead of condemning every killing outright.
When Anas al-Sharif was murdered, his entire crew was also wiped out ahead of the Israeli invasion of Gaza City.
Removing the witnesses. It is an Israeli strategy. Kill and silence the witnesses.
Disturbing reports
Disturbing reports have emerged over the past two weeks about the existence of an IDF military unit tasked with smearing and targeting journalists in Gaza.
This so-called “legitimisation cell” was created in October 2023 at the start of the genocide.
Its purpose is to produce fake documents and evidence to discredit the journalists and claim they are legitimate military targets to justify their killings after they are dead.
This disinformation cell has played the role of a public relations body meant to declassify and produce counter-narratives when media criticism of Israel is heightened.
This information has subsequently been shared with media outlets and “also passed regularly to the Americans through direct channels” and is regularly published uncritically in Western media.
This means the smearing information is regularly picked up by New Zealand media through its syndication services and republished without question.
This is shameful because news editors know that they are dealing with an Israeli government with a history of lying and disinformation; a government that is on trial with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide; and a prime minister wanted on an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant to answer charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel recently allocated an extra US$150 million for its hasbara programme budget in a vain attempt to win hearts and minds. Hasbara is a Hebrew word for “explanation” and is used to describe Israel’s public diplomacy and communications strategy. Critics regard it as a sophisticated propaganda strategy.
And now the latest indictment is that the United Nations has officially declared an Israeli-made famine in Gaza, saying more than half a million Palestinians are facing catastrophic famine conditions, which include starvation, destitution and death.
In spite of the relentless bad news, there was a brief spot of good news this week after my frequent criticism for the past 22 months of the New Zealand media silence.
Aotearoa New Zealand joined 26 other countries to sign a statement by the Media Freedom Coalition calling on Israel to allow “immediate and independent” foreign media access to Gaza, and to ensure all journalists are protected.
For those who watched
I would like to end with a quote by Ahmad Ibsais from his State of Siege substack commentary entitled “A message for those who watched.”
“To every newsroom executive, every polished anchor, every culture critic who found ways to make Gaza disappear from your content calendar: you are not just complicit.
“You are instruments of this genocide. Your euphemisms made the bullets easier to fire. Your editorial guidelines stripped the blood from every massacre.
“You made slaughter palatable for donors and advertisers and liberal sensibilities.
“You chose to be cowards. You chose to serve power. You chose to dehumanize us with headlines and silence and sanitised grief.”
Have a spine! Palestine will be free. Kia Ora and thank you.
This was a speech by Pacific Media Watch convenor Dr David Robie at the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa in Te Komititanga Square, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, on 23 August 2025. Two days later, the Israeli military assassinated six more journalists in two separate incidents — a total of 13 journalists and media workers killed in just over two weeks — and New Zealand media industry representatives sent a letter of protest to New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon appealing for decisive support for the Gazan journalists.
Al Jazeera journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, along with freelance journalist Mohammad Al-Khalidi and freelance cameraman Momen Aliwa, who were targeted and killed in, or as a result of, an August 10 airstrike on their tent in Gaza City.
Correspondents Hussam al-Masri, Hatem Khaled, Mariam Abu Daqqa, Mohammad Salama, Ahmed Abu Azi and Moaz Abu Taha, all killed in a strike on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis on August 25.
Journalist and academic Hassan Douhan, killed in Khan Younis on August 25.
"Not a war - it's colonialism" says a placard at last weekend's pro-Palestinian rally of about 5000 people in Auckland . . . a strong theme among many protesters was criticism of how the genocide is framed in the mainstream media. Image: Asia Pacific Report
SPECIAL REPORT: By David Robie
Protesters in their thousands have been taking to the streets in Aotearoa New Zealand demonstrating in solidarity with Palestine and against genocide for the past 97 weeks.
Yet rarely have the protests across the motu made headlines — or even the news for that matter — unlike the larger demonstrations in many countries around the world.
At times the New Zealand news media themselves have been the target over what is often claimed to be “biased reportage lacking context”. Yet even protests against media, especially public broadcasters, on their doorstep have been ignored.
A demonstration placard last weekend against Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s “spinelessness” over Palestine and condemning Israeli oppression against Gazan journalists. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Reporters have not even engaged, let alone reported the protests.
Last weekend, this abruptly changed with two television crews on hand in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland days after six Palestinian journalists — four Al Jazeera correspondents and cameramen, including the celebrated Anas al-Sharif, plus two other reporters were assassinated by the Israeli military in targeted killings.
With the Gaza Media Office confirming a death toll of almost 270 journalists since October 2023 — more than the combined killings of journalists in both World Wars, and the Korean, Vietnam, and Afghan wars — a growing awareness of the war was hitting home.
After silence about the killing of journalists for the past 22 months, New Zealand this week signed a joint statement by 27 nations for the Media Freedom Coalition belatedly calling on Israel to open up access to foreign media and to offer protection for journalists in Gaza “in light of the unfolding catastrophe”.
Sydney Harbour Bridge factor
Another factor in renewed media interest has probably been the massive March for Humanity on Sydney Harbour Bridge with about 300,000 people taking part on August 3.
One independent New Zealand journalist who has been based in the occupied West Bank for two periods during the Israeli war on Gaza – last year for two months and again this year – is unimpressed with the reportage.
Why? Video and photojournalist Cole Martin from Ōtautahi Christchurch believes there is a serious lack of understanding in New Zealand media of the context of the structural and institutional violence towards the Palestinians.
“It is a media scene in Aotearoa that repeats very harmful and inaccurate narratives,” Martin says.
“Also, there is this idea to be unbiased and neutral in a conflict, both perspectives must have equal legitimacy.”
As a 26-year-old photojournalist, Martin has packed in a lot of experience in his early career, having worked two years for World Vision, meeting South Sudanese refugees in Uganda who had fled civil war. He shared their stories in Aotearoa.
“New Zealand must move beyond empty statements on Gaza” . . . says Cole Martin. Image: The Spinoff screenshot
‘Struggle of the oppressed’
This taught him to put “the struggle of the oppressed and marginalised” at the heart of his storytelling.
Martin studied for a screen and television degree at NZ Broadcasting School, which led to employment with the news team at Whakaata Māori, then a video journalist role with the Otago Daily Times.
He first visited Palestine in early 2019, “seeing the occupation and injustice with my own eyes”. After the struggle re-entered the news cycle in October 2023, he recognised that as a journalist with first-hand contextual knowledge and connections on the ground he was in a unique position to ensure Palestinian voices were heard.
Martin spent two months in the West Bank last year and then gained a grant to study Arabic “which allowed me to return longer-term as New Zealand’s only journalist on the ground”.
“Yes, there are competing narratives,’ he admits, “but the reality on the ground is that if you engage with this in good faith and truth, one of those narratives has a lot more legitimacy than the other.”
Martin says that New Zealand media have failed to recognise this reality through a “mix of ignorance and bias”.
“They haven’t been fair and honest, but they think they have,” he says.
Hesitancy to engage
He argues that the hesitancy to engage with the Palestinian media, Palestinian journalists and Palestinian sources on the ground “springs from the idea that to be Palestinian you are inherently biased”.
“In the same way that being Māori means you are biased,” he says.
“Your world view shapes your experiences. If you are living under a system of occupation and domination, or seeing that first hand, it would be wrong and immoral to talk about it in a way that is misleading, the same way that I cannot water down what I am reporting from here.
“It’s the reality of what I see here, I am not going to water it down with a sort of ‘bothsideism’.”
Martin says the media in New Zealand tend to cover the tragic war which has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians so far — most of them women and children — and with the UN this week declaring an “Israeli-made famine” with thousands more deaths predicted in a simplistic and shallow way.
“This war is treated as a one-off event without putting it in the context of 76 years of occupation and domination by Israel and without actually challenging some of these narratives, without providing the context of why, and centring it on the violations of international law.”
It is a very serious failure and not just in the way things have been reported, but in the way editors source stories given the heavy dependency in New Zealand media on international media that themselves have been persistently and strongly criticised for institutional bias — such as the BBC, CNN, The New York Times and the Associated Press news agency, which all operate from news bureaux inside Israel.
“Firsthand view of peacemaking challenge in the ‘Holy Land’.” Image: Asia Pacific Report screenshot
‘No independent journalism’
“I have heard from editors that I have reached out to who have basically said, ‘No, we’re not going to publish any independent or freelance work because we depend on syndicated sources like BBC, CNN and Associated Press’.
“Which means that they are publishing news that doesn’t have a relevant New Zealand connection. Usually this is what local media need, a NZ connection, yet they will publish work from the BBC, CNN and Associated Press that has no relevance to New Zealand, or doesn’t highlight what is relevant to NZ so far as our government in action.
“And I think that is our big failure, our media has not held our government to account by asking the questions that need to be asked, in spite of the fact that those questions are easily accessed.”
Expanding on this, Martin suggests talking to people in the community that are taking part in the large protests weekly, consistently.
“Why are they doing this? Why are they giving so much of their time to protest against what Israel is doing, highlighting these justices? And yet the media has failed to engage with them in good faith,” he says.
“The media has demonised them in many ways and they kind of create gestures like what Stuff have done, like asking them to write in their opinions.
“Maybe it is well intentioned, maybe it isn’t. It opens the space to kind of more ‘equal platforming’ of very unequal narratives.
“Like we give the same airtime to the spokespeople of an army that is carrying out genocide as we are giving to the people who are facing the genocide.”
Robert Fisk on media balance and the Middle East. Video: Pacific Media Centre
’50/50 journalism’
The late journalist Robert Fisk, the Beirut-based expert on the Middle East writing for The Independent and the prolific author of many books including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, described this phenomena as “50/50 journalism” and warned how damaging it could be.
Among many examples he gave in a 2008 visit to New Zealand, Fisk said journalists should not give “equal time” to the SS guards at the concentration camp, they should be talking to the survivors. Journalists ought to be objective and unbiased — “on the side of those who suffer”.
“They always publish Israel says, ‘dee-dah-de-dah’. That’s not reporting, reporting is finding out what is actually going on on the ground. That’s what BBC and CNN do. Report what they say, not what’s going on. I think they are very limited in terms of how they report the structural stuff,” says Martin.
“CNN, BBC and Associated Press have their place for getting immediate, urgent news out, but I am quite frustrated as the only New Zealand journalist based in the occupied West Bank or on the ground here.
“How little interest media have shown in pieces from here. Even with a full piece, free of charge, they will still find excuses not to publish, which is hard to push back on as a freelancer because ultimately it is their choice, they are the editors.
“I cannot demand that they publish my work, but it begs the question if I was a New Zealand journalist on the ground reporting from Ukraine, there would be a very different response in their eagerness to publish, or platform, what I am sharing.
“Particularly as a video and photojournalist, it is very frustrating because everything I write about is documented, I am showing it.
NZ journalist documents Palestinian life in the West Bank. Image: NZH screenshot
‘Showing with photos’
“It’s not stuff that is hearsay. I am showing them with all these photos and yet still they are reluctant to publish my work. And I think that translates into reluctance to publish anything with a Palestinian perspective. They think it is very complex and difficult to get in touch with Palestinians.
“They don’t know whether they can really trust their voices. The reality is, of course they can trust their voices. Palestinian journalists are the only journalists able to get into Gaza [and on the West Bank on the ground here].
“If people have a problem with that, if Israel has a problem with that, then they should let the international press in.”
Pointing the finger at the failure of Middle East coverage isn’t easy, Martin says. But one factor is that the generations who make the editorial decisions have a “biased view”.
“Journalists who have been here have not been independent, they have been taken here, accompanied by soldiers, on a tailored tour. This is instead of going off the tourist trail, off the media trail, seeing the realities that communities are facing here, engaging in good faith with Palestinian communities here, seeing the structural violence, drawing the connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in the West Bank — and not just the Israeli sources,” Martin says.
“And listening to the human rights organisations, the academics and the experts, and the humanitarian organisations who are all saying that this is a genocide, structural violence . . . the media still fails to frame it in that way.
‘Complete failure’
“It still fails to provide adequate context that this is very structural, very institutional — and it’s wrong.
“It’s a complete failure and it is very frustrating to be here as a journalist on the ground trying to do a good job, trying to redeem this failure in journalism.”
“Having the cover on the ground here and yet there is no interest. Editors have come back to me and said, ‘we can’t publish this piece because the subject matter is “too controversial”. It’s unbelievable that we are explicitly ignoring stories that are relevant because it is ‘controversial’. It’s just an utter failure of journalism.
“As the Fourth Estate, they have utterly failed to hold the government to account for inaction. They are not asking the right questions.
“I have had other editors who have said, ‘Oh, we’re relying on syndicated sources’. That’s our position. Or, we don’t have enough money.
That’s true, New Zealand media has a funding shortage, and journalists have been let go.
“But the truth is if they really want the story, they would find the funding.
Reach out to Palestinians
“If they actually cared, they would reach out to the journalists on the ground, reach out to the Palestinians. The reality is that they don’t care enough to be actually doing those things.
“I think that there is a shift, that they are beginning to respond more and more. But they are well behind the game, they have been complicit in anti-Arab narratives, and giving a platform to genocidal narratives from the Israeli government and government leaders without questioning, without challenging and without holding our government to account.
“The New Zealand government has been very pro-Israel, driven to side with America.
“They need to do better urgently, before somebody takes them to the International Criminal Court for complicity.”
“Speak Up Kōrerotia” — a radio show centred on human rights issues — has featured a nuclear-free Pacific and other issues in this week’s show.
Encouraging discussion on human rights issues in both Canterbury and New Zealand, Speak Up Kōrerotia offers a forum to provide a voice for affected communities.
Engaging in conversations around human rights issues in the country, each show covers a different human rights issue with guests from or working with the communities.
Nuclear refugees from Rongelap in the Marshall Islands being evacuated on board the Rainbow Warrior to Mejatto island in May 1985. Images: David Robie/Eyes of Fire
Analysing and asking questions of the realities of life allows Speak Up Kōrerotia to cover the issues that often go untouched.
Discussing the hard-hitting topics, Speak Up Kōrerotia encourages listeners to reflect on the issues covered.
Hosted by Dr Sally Carlton, the show brings key issues to the fore and provides space for guests to “Speak Up” and share their thoughts and experiences.
The latest episode today highlights the July/August 2025 marking of two major anniversaries — 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior here in Aotearoa.
What do these anniversaries mean in the context of 2025, with the ever-greater escalation of global tension and a new nuclear arms race occurring alongside the seeming impotence of the UN and other international bodies?
Anti-nuclear advocacy in 2025 Video/audio podcast: Speak Up Kōrerotia
Speak Up Kōrerotia . . . human rights at Plains FM Image: Screenshot
Guests: Disarmament advocate Dr Kate Dewes, journalist and author Dr David Robie, critical nuclear studies academic Dr Karly Burch and Japanese gender literature professor Dr Susan Bouterey bring passion, a wealth of knowledge and decades of anti-nuclear advocacy to this discussion.
Dr Robie’s new book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warriorwas launched on the anniversary of the ship’s bombing. This revised edition has extensive new and updated material, images, and a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark.
The Speak Up Kōrerotia panel in today’s show, “Anti-Nuclear Advocacy in 2025”, Dr Kate Dewes (from left), Dr Sally Carlton, Dr David Robie, Dr Karly Burch and Dr Susan Bouterey. Image: Sally Carlton screenshot
It’s so revealing how Israelis keep begging Trump to end the killing in Gaza, because they understand that the US President has the power to force Israel to stop. It seems like Israelis understand this far better than Americans do.
Six former Israeli hostages and the widow of a slain hostage have released a video pleading with President Trump in English to support a comprehensive deal to make peace in Gaza so that the remaining hostages can be freed.
“You have the power to make history, to be the president of peace, the one who ended the war, ended the suffering, and brought every hostage home, including my little brother,” implores one of the hostages.
“President Trump, please act now before it’s too late for them, too,” pleads the widow.
This is not the first time Israelis have begged Trump to force an end to the slaughter.
Earlier this month more than 600 former senior Israeli security officials from Mossad and Shin Bet sent Trump a letter urging him to compel Netanyahu to make peace in Gaza. They did this because they understand something that many Americans do not: that the US President has always had the power to end the Gaza holocaust.
It’s crazy how many times I’ve encountered Americans telling me that this is “Israel’s war” and there’s nothing the president can do to end it.
Israelis understand that Trump can end the nightmare in Gaza Video: Caitlin Johnstone
It was mostly Democrats doing this back when Biden was president and I was slamming Genocide Joe for continuing this mass atrocity, and now that Trump is in office it’s his supporters who show up in my comments section white knighting for the president.
“It’s not our war and we should stay out of it,” they sometimes claim, mistakenly thinking that critics of the US-backed genocide are asking for some kind of US intervention.
But the call isn’t for the US to intervene, it’s for the US to stop intervening. To end the US interventionism that has been underway for two years. The Gaza holocaust can be ended by the US simply ceasing to add wood to the fire.
Israeli military insiders have been saying again and again that the onslaught in Gaza would not be possible without US support.
A senior Israeli air force official told Ha’aretz last year that “without the Americans’ supply of weapons to the Israel Defence Forces, especially the air force, Israel would have had a hard time sustaining its war for more than a few months.”
In November 2023, retired Israeli Major-General Yitzhak Brick told Jewish News Syndicate that, “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US.
“The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability . . . Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”
“The entire Israel Air Force relies completely on American aircraft: fighter planes, transport planes, refueler planes and helicopters. All of Israel’s air power is based on the American commitment to defend Israel.
“We have no other reliable source for essential supplies of equipment, munitions and advanced weapons that Israel cannot manufacture on its own.
“In recent months, hundreds of American transport planes have landed at IAF bases carrying thousands of tons of advanced, vital military equipment and munitions.”
The Israelis clearly understand that they’ve been entirely dependent on the US for the IDF’s acts of butchery in Gaza this entire time, and they clearly understand that the US President has the ability to turn off the tap whenever he wants.
And now they are begging the president to do so with increasing urgency, because it’s been made clear to them that their own government isn’t going to stop until it is forced to stop. They can’t stop the gunman, so they’re turning to the man who’s feeding him the ammo.
It would be good if Americans understood this as well.
Trump is committing genocide in Gaza, just as surely as Netanyahu is, and he could end it at any time. The fact that he still has not chosen to do so makes him one of the most evil people on earth.
Palestinian journalists have long known Gaza to be the most dangerous place on earth for media workers, but Israel’s attack on a tent housing journalists in Gaza City last week has left many reeling from shock and fear, reports Al Jazeera.
Four Al Jazeera staff members were among the seven people killed in an Israeli drone strike outside al-Shifa Hospital on August 10.
The Israeli military admitted to deliberately targeting the tent after making unsubstantiated accusations that one of those killed, Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, was a member of Hamas.
Palestinian journalist and film director Hassan Abu Dan . . . “as a journalist you live in conditions more difficult than you can imagine.” Image: AJ screenshot APR
Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least 238 media workers since October 2023, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. This toll is higher than that of World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan and the Yugoslavia wars combined.
Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud said in a video report about the plight of journalists this week that “press vests and helmets, once considered a shield, now feel like a target.”
“The fear is constant — and justified,” Mahmoud said. “Every assignment is accompanied by the same unspoken question: Will [I] make it back alive?”
Smears no coincidence
“It is no coincidence that the smears against al-Sharif — who has reported night and day for Al Jazeera since the start of the war — surfaced every time he reported on a major development in the war, most recently the starvation brought about by Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into the territory,” CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said in the aftermath of Israel’s attack.
In light of Israel’s systematic targeting of journalists, media workers in Gaza are forced to make difficult choices.
Palestinian reporter Sally Thabet told Al Jazeera: “As a mother and a journalist, I go through this mental dissonance almost daily, whether to go to work or stay with my daughters and being afraid of the random shelling of the Israeli occupation army.”
“Journalism is not a crime . . . oppressing it is” placards at the Auckland free Palestine rally in Te Komititanga Square last weekend. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Across the street from the ruins of the School of Media Studies at al-Quds Open University in Gaza City, where he used to teach, Hussein Saad has been recovering from an injury he sustained while running to safety.
“The deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists has a strong effect on the disappearance of the Palestinian story and the disappearance of the media narrative,” he said.
In less than 2 years, we lost over 250 Journalists
Saad argued the Gaza Strip was witnessing “the disappearance of the truth”.
While journalists report on mass killings, human suffering and starvation, they also cope with their own losses and deprivation. Photographer and correspondent Amer al-Sultan said hunger was a major challenge.
“I used to go to work, and when I didn’t find anything to eat, I would just drink water,” he said.
Palestinian journalists under fire. Video: Al Jazeera
‘We are all . . . confused’
“I did this for two days. I had to live for two or three days on water. This is one of the most difficult challenges we face amid this war against our people — starvation.”
Journalist and film director Hassan Abu Dan said reporters “live in conditions that are more difficult than the mind can imagine.”
“You live in a tent. You drink water that is not good for drinking. You eat unhealthy food …
“We are all, as journalists, confused. There is a part of our lives that has been ruined and gone far away,” he said.
Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud said that despite the psychological trauma and the personal risks, Palestinian journalists continue to do their jobs, “driven by a belief that documenting the truth is not just a profession, but a duty to their people and history”.
Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud . . . the fear in Gaza is constant – and justified – after Israel’s targeted attack killed four colleagues. Image: Al Jazeera
Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . publication 10 July 2025. Image: David Robie/Little Island Press
REVIEW: By Jenny Nicholls
Author David Robie left his cabin on the Rainbow Warrior three days before it was blown up by the Directorate General for External Security (DGSE), France’s foreign intelligence agency
The ship was destroyed at Marsden Wharf on 10 July 1985 by two limpet mines attached
below the waterline.
As New Zealand soon learned to its shock, the second explosion killed crew member and photographer Fernando Pereira as he tried to retrieve his cameras.
Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . publication 10 July 2025. Image: David Robie/Little Island Press
“I had planned to spend the night of the bombing onboard with my two young sons, to give them a brief taste of shipboard life,” Dr Robie writes. “At the last moment I decided to leave it to another night.”
He left the ship after 11 weeks documenting what turned out to be the last of her humanitarian missions — a voyage which highlighted the exploitation of Pacific nations
by countries who used them to test nuclear weapons.
Dr Robie was the only journalist on board to cover both the evacuation of the people
of Rongelap Atoll after their land, fishing grounds and bodies were ravaged by US nuclear fallout, and the continued voyage to nuclear-free Vanuatu and New Zealand.
Eyes of Fire is not only the authoritative biography of the Rainbow Warrior and her
missions, but a gripping account of the infiltration of Greenpeace by a French spy, the bombing, its planning, the capture of the French agents, the political fallout, and ongoing
challenges for Pacific nations.
Dr Robie corrects the widely held belief that the first explosion on the Rainbow Warrior
was intended as a warning, to avoid loss of life. No, it turns out, the French state really
did mean to kill people.
“It was remarkable,” he writes, “that Fernando Pereira was the only person who
died.”
The explosives were set to detonate shortly before midnight, when members of the
crew would be asleep. (One of them was the ship’s relief cook, Waihekean Margaret Mills. She awoke in the nick of time. The next explosion blew in the wall of her cabin).
“Two cabins on the main deck had their floors ruptured by pieces of steel flying from
the [first] engine room blast,” writes Dr Robie.
“By chance, the four crew who slept in those rooms were not on board. If they had been,
they almost certainly would have been killed.”
Eyes of Fire author David Robie with Rainbow Warrior III . . . not only an account of the Rongelap humanitarian voyage, but also a gripping account of the infiltration of Greenpeace and the bombing. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Eyes of Fire was first published in 1986 — and also in the UK and USA, and has been reissued in 2005, 2015 and again this year to coincide with the 40th anniversary
of the bombing.
If you are lucky enough to own the first edition, you will find plenty that is new here; updated text, an index, new photographs, a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark and a searing preface by Waihekean Bunny McDiarmid, former executive director
of Greenpeace International.
As you would expect from the former head of journalism schools at the University
of Papua New Guinea and University of the South Pacific, and founder of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre, Eyes of Fire is not only a brilliant piece of research, it is an absolutely
fascinating read, filled with human detail.
The bombing and its aftermath make up a couple of chapters in a book which covers an enormous amount of ground.
Professor David Robie is a photographer, journalist and teacher who was awarded an MNZM in 2024 for his services to journalism and Asia-Pacific media education. He is founding editor of the Pacific Journalism Review, also well worth seeking out.
Eyes of Fire is an updated classic and required reading for anyone interested in activism
or the contemporary history of the Pacific.
