The year 2024 was the deadliest one for journalists and media workers in over three decades, with at least 124 of them having been killed, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. Of these, 85, or nearly 70% of them, were Palestinians killed by Israel while reporting on the war in Gaza.

More journalists were killed in 2024 than in any other year since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data more than three decades ago, the New York-based global media watchdog said in its annual report released on Wednesday.

The organisation, which advocates for press freedom, has kept records on the killings of journalists since 1992.

The increase in killings, which saw a 22% rise from 2023, reflected “surging levels of international conflict, political unrest and criminality worldwide”, the organisation said.

The report noted the number of conflicts globally – whether political, criminal, or military in nature – had doubled in the past five years. “This is reflected in the high number of deaths of journalists in nations such as Sudan, Pakistan and Myanmar,” it said.

However, the organisation said that the toll of conflict on the press was most glaring in the number of journalists and media workers killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, which saw an increase from 78 in 2023 to 85. All of these deaths were “at the hands of the Israeli military”, the report added.

Israel’s military offensive against Gaza began on October 7, 2023, after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an incursion into southern Israel, killing 1,200 persons and taking more than 200 hostages.

Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then, killing more than 62,000 persons, including over 17,400 children. About 400 Israeli soldiers have died in the conflict.

Apart from Gaza, Sudan and Pakistan saw the second-highest number of journalists and media workers killed in 2024, with six each, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Five were killed in Mexico and two in Haiti.

Other deaths took place in countries such as Myanmar, Mozambique, India and Iraq.

The report also noted that freelancers, who accounted for 43 of the killings in 2024, were among the most vulnerable due to their lack of resources.

“Today is the most dangerous time to be a journalist in CPJ’s [Committee to Protect Journalists] history,” AFP quoted the organisation’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg as saying. “The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists.”

On January 19, the first six-week phase of the Gaza ceasefire began, involving the exchange of 33 hostages for hundreds of Palestinian detainees in Israel. While Hamas has so far released 16 Israeli hostages, 566 Palestinian prisoners have been freed.