For three years, the world has been consistently told the same story: Israel is hunting journalists in Gaza. The claim filled op-ed pages, anchored UN statements and became an article of faith in newsrooms from London to New York. Questioning it was treated as something close to heresy.
Now the IDF is calling out the lie.
In a detailed release titled “The Press Files,” the Israeli military named 170 Palestinians it says posed as journalists while serving in the military wings of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terror groups. The evidence, according to the IDF, draws on open-source material, documents seized in the field and interrogations of captured operatives.
“Journalists are expected to report the unbiased truth,” the military said. “Yet these individuals concealed a fundamental truth about themselves.”
That is quite an omission. It is like a food critic forgetting to mention that he owns the restaurant.
Today, we revealed the truth behind these so-called “journalists”. pic.twitter.com/If26G8ZD1b
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 1, 2026
The detail that should make editors squirm is the revelation that some of the people named were stringers for mainstream international outlets. As war scholar John Spencer put it, “The truth will set you free.” It may also set a few foreign desks scrambling to check who exactly they were paying, assuming they didn’t already know.
The truth will set you free. The @IDF just published a list of 170 Gazan terrorists who doubled as journalists during the war. Including stringers from multiple main stream media organization. https://t.co/RZodEF1Dpc https://t.co/uQjK6gxvkL
— John Spencer (@SpencerGuard) October 1, 2026
International press organizations are now quietly revising their counts of journalists supposedly targeted by Israel after Hamas and its allies inconveniently claimed dozens of these “reporters” as their own fallen “martyrs.” When the terrorists themselves are correcting your data, it may be time to find a new methodology.
None of this surprises anyone who has watched Hamas operate. This is an organization that stores rockets in schools and runs command centers under hospitals. Turning a press vest into camouflage is hardly a stretch. Media propaganda is central to Hamas’s war effort.
The real scandal is not that terrorists lied. It’s how eagerly so much of the Western media believed them, amplified them and turned their deaths into an indictment of the one army in this war that actually distinguishes between combatants and civilians.
Israel isn’t looking for applause. But it is asking to be judged by the same standards as everyone else.
The press corps prides itself on holding power accountable. Here is a fine opportunity to start with itself.
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