The massacre at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis has reignited urgent questions over the role of international media organisations in protecting their journalists in Gaza. Five reporters lost their lives in the attack, part of a relentless campaign that has already claimed the lives of more than two hundred journalists since the beginning of the war, an unprecedented toll in modern history.

Those killed, Mohamed Salama, Hossam al-Masri, Ahmed Abu Aziz, Mariam Abu Daqa and Moath Abu Taha, were working with some of the world’s leading media outlets. Their deaths came after a strike hit the fourth floor of the hospital, followed moments later by a second blast during rescue operations, a tactic designed to maximise casualties among civilians, first responders and reporters alike.

What is unfolding is widely seen as the most brutal assault on journalism the world has witnessed. Reporters have not only been killed in record numbers but also detained, threatened and denied medical treatment abroad. Offices of international news agencies have been reduced to rubble, broadcast vehicles destroyed, and media equipment seized, leaving those still reporting under constant threat.

Such actions reveal a deliberate strategy: to silence those documenting the war and to erase the evidence of atrocities committed against civilians. Yet the response from the very organisations whose journalists are under attack has been muted. Calls are growing for international news agencies and press freedom bodies to do more than issue statements, to take tangible steps to protect their staff and confront the forces responsible for these crimes.

The bloodshed at Nasser was not an isolated event but part of a systematic effort to silence Gaza’s voice and blind the world to its suffering. Unless decisive action is taken, journalism itself risks being buried beneath the rubble alongside those who died trying to tell the truth.