The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) still includes at least 120 names linked to Hamas and other terror factions on its widely cited list of "journalists" killed in Gaza, according to an independent audit of the organization's database obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon. That's well over half the names on the 209-person list maintained by the embattled, New York-based group.
About 56 of the names still on the list were active, violent militants when they died, according to an audit performed by the media watchdog group HonestReporting. The findings will likely deepen the controversy surrounding CPJ, which has been repeatedly embarrassed when Gaza terror groups or Palestinian families release so-called martyr posters proudly proclaiming that a slain "journalist" on the CPJ list was actually a militant who died in action. The posters often show the "journalist" wearing militant groups' insignias and brandishing weapons.
CPJ has been in turmoil for months over allegations of myopic anti-Israel bias that's clouded its larger mission of protecting journalists worldwide. The group announced in late June—after a series of Free Beacon reports questioning the integrity of its influential list of "Journalist Casualties in the Israel-Gaza War"—that numerous confirmed terrorists were included in the death toll and that it was conducting a full review of the database. While the organization initially said the review would be "completed in July," a spokesman confirmed to the Free Beacon this week that it remains "ongoing and the findings are yet to be made public."
Nearly a month since its self-imposed deadline expired, CPJ has said little about who is handling the review and what precise standards will guide the work, suggesting the internal tumult that first became public in late June continues. Upon commencing the review, CPJ said it would take a "dynamic approach" to its list and would remove "names from its database if subsequent evidence shows individuals were not journalists or media workers, were not active in those capacities at the time of their deaths, or were engaging in combat."
In the lead-up to this announcement, CPJ's board, composed mostly of leaders from prestigious American news organizations, has struggled to present a front of objectivity. Its vice chair, Lydia Polgreen, who represents the New York Times, is virulently anti-Israel and claimed last year in the Times that Israel assassinated a "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist." Even though Israel has released voluminous documentation that the dead man was a Hamas fighter—including producing a picture of him with Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar—Polgreen insisted there was "no credible evidence" that the man fought for the terror group.
Earlier this summer, the board was exposed as riven by infighting when biotech heiress Nika Soon-Shiong—the publisher of Drop Site News—announced that she'd been booted from the board and blamed a Free Beacon report on her anti-Israel activism for prompting it to cut ties. However, the board—brimming with anti-Israel sentiment—overwhelmingly voted 17-1 just a week later to affirm that "organizations affiliated with militant groups" meet the criteria of a legitimate journalistic outlet. In announcing the vote, a defiant Polgreen condemned "a great deal of false and speculative information" about CPJ (only Fox News's board representative voted against this definition).
CPJ was caught in late May quietly removing the names of some confirmed terrorists and publicly confirmed in late June that another eight names were deleted due to involvement in hostilities. Seven other names were also removed for not being journalists at all. But a new audit by HonestReporting reveals that CPJ still lists 120 individuals who have "some terrorism affiliation," whether through their journalistic outlet or activities on the battlefield.
"Our audit of CPJ's slain Gazan journalist database shows that at least 57 percent of supposed media workers have some ties to terrorist organizations," HonestReporting told the Free Beacon in a statement. "Ten percent of individuals on the database have had martyr posters issued by terrorist organizations, and almost every other week another one is issued. While CPJ has committed to conducting a review, this self-audit is almost a month past its expected release date, and the body of evidence proving its database is riddled with terrorists grows."
At least 25 of the CPJ-endorsed names reviewed by HonestReporting are confirmed terrorists who were identified through "official martyr notices" published by their respective jihadist organizations, including the Hamas-affiliated Al-Qassam Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Mujahideen Brigades, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, among others. All of those included in this category are confirmed battlefield terrorists who were killed in Israeli operations, but still remain on CPJ's list due to their dual affiliation with various media outlets.
Read the full audit here.
Another 18 supposed journalists were publicly designated by the Israel Defense Forces as terrorists or jihadist operatives, according to HonestReporting's findings. This includes Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Al-Louh, who was "killed in an IDF strike on December 15, 2024, allegedly against a terrorist 'command-and-control center' in which an imminent strike was supposedly being planned against Israeli troops," according to HonestReporting’s audit. The IDF said in a statement that Al-Louh was a platoon commander in Palestinian Islamic Jihad's Central Camps Brigade. But CPJ, in a glowing encomium, wrote on its website that it "has previously denounced the IDF's smearing of Palestinian journalists with terrorist labels" and said the IDF had no proof Al-Louh was a militant.
Another name that falls into this category is Hamza Murtaja, who CPJ describes as "a co-owner and camera operator for the privately owned Record Media production company." The IDF, however, confirmed in February 2025, when it killed Murtaja and other Hamas terrorists, that the supposed cameraman "was an operative in the military branch of Hamas and was struck while staying at a Hamas command and control 'center that was embedded and hidden by the Hamas terrorist organization inside the 'Mustafa Khaft' School compound in Gaza City."
HonestReporting further determined over the course of its audit that another 13 names on CPJ's list were identified as terrorists "through statements by family members, open-source information, and other documents." While not all of these individuals were confirmed as terrorists by Israel or their respective jihadist groups, the information provided by HonestReporting suggests that CPJ may have touted them as journalists before fully researching their backgrounds.
One of those individuals, Ahmed Al-Qara, is listed by CPJ as a freelancer and "photojournalist who worked for Al-Aqsa University," the radical Gaza school that Israel exposed as an "important Hamas operational" center. Al-Qara was killed by Israel in December 2025 and, two years later, the left-wing Guardian newspaper quoted CPJ to cast doubt on his and other supposed journalists' terror affiliations.
Open-source information furnished by HonestReporting shows that Al-Qara was identified as a "mujahid," or "jihadist," in a Telegram channel affiliated with the Al-Qassam Brigades. He was also identified as a terror combatant in at least two eulogies posted online.
Another CPJ-endorsed journalist, Amr Abu Odeh, was memorialized as a "Palestinian freelance photographer for Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency and Reuters news agency." Abu Odeh was killed on October 31, 2024, and, according to HonestReporting, was "photographed in an unofficial photo in military fatigue[s] in social media posts by alleged Hamas sniper Hossam Shabat. Family members described Odeh as a Mujahid and Al-Qassam member. His family has a history of association with Hamas."
HonestReporting's audit found that another 61 names on CPJ's list are those who worked for "media outlets associated with terrorist organizations," such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad-affiliated Al Quds Today TV, the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV, and its Holy Quran Radio Station, among several others.
Those who fall into this category could remain on CPJ's list once its final review is complete because they meet the organization's much-disputed definition of a journalist, which states: "Organizations affiliated with militant groups" meet the criteria of a legitimate journalistic outlet "provided they are not engaging in combat or inciting violence in a manner likely to have imminent effect."
Another three individuals flagged by HonestReporting include those who "work for a news outlet with disputed affiliation with terrorist organizations," meaning outstanding questions remain about their activities on the battlefield. Eleven names included in the audit belong to those terrorists who have since been removed from CPJ's database after compelling evidence confirmed them as active combatants. CPJ removed an additional seven for not meeting the organization's definition of a journalist, but HonestReporting found that three of those individuals had terrorist ties.
CPJ declined to comment on HonestReporting's findings, saying it is unable to do so "while our review is underway." To date, the spokesman said, "the audit of its findings is ongoing and will be published by CPJ once finalized."
"CPJ's database was one of the chief materials used by news outlets around the world to promulgate the narrative that the Israeli military was deliberately targeting journalists," HonestReporting told the Free Beacon. "Evidence is increasingly indicating that terrorists were giving themselves press passes so that they could manipulate journalists into manufacturing outrage about the persecution of ostensible colleagues. Not only should CPJ apologize for laundering terrorist psychological warfare, news outlets should issue a sweeping wave of corrections and retractions."
