On 11 August 2025, just a few hours after the killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al‑Sharif in a targeted strike on a tent sheltering a group of journalists near the Al‑Shifa Hospital in western Gaza, a chilling image was posted on the Telegram channel of Or Fialkov, who has been presented by some Israeli media as a researcher and expert in war and terrorism — even though it appears he has no diploma or academic qualifications in the field, and the company under his name offers digital marketing services. He recently published a photo of two Gazan journalists, Mohnad Qashta and Mohamed al‑Sharif, with a target photoshopped over their faces alongside a call for murder: “Here are other ‘journalists’ the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) must eliminate in Gaza.” When contacted by RSF, Or Fialkov said that he stands by his demand “for the elimination of terrorists,” but denies issuing an “incitement to murder.”  

He justifies his claims by alleging that Mohnad Qashta himself stated his brother was a Hamas terrorist. He also believes that Mohamed al‑Sharif — the uncle of Anas al‑Sharif, killed on 11 August and accused of terrorism by Or Falkov— was replacing his nephew “within Hamas and on the air of Al Jazeera.” Or Fialkov cited the website Media Watch Legal to back up these unsubstantiated claims, yet the site does not mention these two journalists.   

The launch of Media Watch Legal was announced on 2 September by Amichai Chikli, the Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism — the very day after a mass communications operation to support Gaza’s journalists coordinated by RSF and the global civic movement Avaaz. Media Watch Legal’s stated aim is to flag “fake journalists.” It is one of several examples of the Israeli authorities’ sustained investment in the media sphere. A recent investigation by Israel‑based independent outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call also revealed the existence of a secret military intelligence unit, dubbed a “legitimation cell,” tasked with finding purported links between Gaza journalists and Hamas.

Media Watch Legal uses similar tactics: journalists are discredited for their alleged “close proximity to a terrorist” because they either have a family member affiliated with Hamas or were killed in a strike that, according to the Israeli army, targeted a known member of Hamas — arguments that carry no weight under international law and, therefore, cannot justify such targeting, even if the claims are verified. 

More absurd still, Media Watch Legal claimed in a now‑deleted post that Moustafa Thuraya, a journalist who worked with the French press agency Agence France‑Presse (AFP), was not a real journalist based on the sole evidence that his Facebook account shares “three mutual friends with three individuals identified as affiliated with Hamas,” noting he had no direct Facebook connections with Hamas members. In January 2024, Moustafa Thuraya was killed in a targeted Israeli strike alongside Hamza al‑Dahdouh from Al Jazeera. The Israeli army claimed that they “belonged to terrorist groups,” without providing sufficient evidence. The spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to the RSF request for comment.

“These smear campaigns are part of a strategy that ends up legitimising the assassination of journalists in Gaza. Encouraged by civil and military authorities in Israel, they’re based on unverifiable allegations of involvement in terrorism or affiliation with Hamas, unfounded accusations of staging what they report. News outlets and social media users shouldn’t fall for it: Palestinian journalists strive to do their work with courage and professionalism, despite previous repression from Hamas and current attacks from the Israeli army. If they are erased, it will be propaganda against propaganda — which will benefit no one.”

“Gazawood”: accusations that Gaza’s journalism is staged

Another common accusation against Gaza’s journalists is that they stage their depictions of daily life in the blockaded enclave, closed off since October 2023. Gaza’s journalists are regularly suspected of fabricating their images and videos, a smear campaign grouped under the labels “Gazawood” or “Pallywood” (a portmanteau of “Palestine” and “Hollywood”), a reference to the famous California cinema scene. The label is amplified by several influential pro‑Israeli accounts on social media, including one account on the platform X openly named “Gazawood” that counts over 90,000 followers. The Israeli fact‑checking NGO Fake Reporter identified the individuals behind the account as a former Israeli general, an Israeli author of young adult books and the US historian Richard Landes — the very person who coined the term “Pallywood.” The report analysed over 700 posts of Gazawood content and found that only 5.75 per cent were accurate.

For example, on 16 May 2025, while covering a bombing in the Beit Lahya neighbourhood in northern Gaza, correspondent for Jordanian channel Al Ghad TV Mahmoud Abu Salama was moved by a family’s distress and decided to help by transporting them in his car. He filmed the scene, a moment of daily life in Gaza. The next day, X users accused him of staging the sequence, pointing to a vague resemblance between the children in his video and children in another clip of food distribution. This accusation, spread via a video tagged “Gazawood,” gradually gained so much traction that it was reposted by the Israeli army’s official Arabic‑language Facebook page on 7 August 2025  — and the journalist had to publish a video refuting the false claims and defending his work.

RSF has repeatedly observed the use of this pretext to discredit the professionalism of Palestinian journalists. In May 2025, independent journalist Moamen Abu Alouf, who worked with Al Jazeera and the Turkish news agency Anadolu, was also accused of staging the rescue of a little girl during a fire. According to his family, he was even targeted in a post on X — which was later deleted — by an Israeli army official.

Yet just a few weeks earlier, Israeli services had contacted Moamen Abu Alouf for a very different reason: the 19‑year‑old journalist received an SMS inviting him to call a number to “ensure his life and his family’s future.” Signed by an Israeli intelligence officer, the message appeared to be a recruitment attempt. Courted on the one hand and slandered on the other, Moamen Abu Alouf was killed on 9 June 2025 by artillery fire from an Israeli tank while he was helping victims of a previous strike.

False accusations fed to an audience of millions 

Another such smear campaign involves photojournalist Anas Zayed Fteiha, a photojournalist who contributed to Anadolu, who was targeted not by authorities but by media professionals. In an article published on 5 August, the German tabloid Bild accused him of “staging Hamas propaganda” in his photos. However, Fake Reporter and the French daily Libération showed the sequence was not fabricated and depicts an actual food distribution during a famine in Gaza that has been confirmed by the United Nations.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs relayed this accusation through content on its official X accounts. In one video, the Israeli state’s official account cites the Bild piece and denounces outlets that “push staged lies,” showing an image used by Bild of Anas Zayed Fteiha taking a photo, followed by the cover of the 1 August 2025 edition of the US weekly Time, featuring a photograph showing the famine in Gaza.

While the two photos from Time and Bild were taken in the same location, investigations show that Time’s cover photo was not taken by Anas Zayed Fteiha but by another journalist. That did not, however, stop the Israeli state’s video from depicting the image as “Hamas propaganda” and declaring: “This is complicity - not journalism.” The Israeli Government Advertising Agency even went so far as to promote this video in ads on YouTube, including in the United States. When contacted by RSF, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Oren Marmorstein, maintained that the video relies on Bild’s investigation before claiming that both photographers “took a series of ‘staged’ photos that were also used by Time,” adding, “The one who controls the photos coming out of Gaza is Hamas.”

The video from the Israeli state’s official account was viewed more than 8 million times on X, making it the most‑viewed of the 10,000 posts documented by RSF that paired “Pallywood” and “journalist” on the social media platform between January and August 2025.

These smear campaigns foster suspicion and feed the Israeli army’s narrative at a time when over 210 journalists have been killed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, according to the RSF tally. For at least 56 of these slain journalists, the NGO has evidence indicating they were targeted by the Israeli army or killed while doing their job.