A little-known Palestinian journalist group—which is behind the widely publicized claims by American media figures that Israel is intentionally murdering journalists in Gaza—is a radical, "pro-terrorist" operation in the West Bank whose leader regularly invokes bloodshed and touts terrorists as "heroes," according to a watchdog investigation obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.
The group, known as the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate (PJS), is led by a "pro-terrorist official" who has glorified "individual terrorists with blood on their hands" and advocated on behalf of imprisoned jihadists. The PJS is a Ramallah-based media union that cites "struggle against the occupation" as one of its core missions and has played an outsized role in seeding spurious claims that Israel is "silencing the press through killing." Two of the world's most prominent journalist advocacy groups—the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)—have relied heavily on PJS's research to build their widely cited lists of "journalists" killed in Gaza.
PJS, for instance, served as "a top source" for the CPJ's much-disputed list of "journalist casualties in the Israeli-Gaza war," according to a review by the media watchdog group HonestReporting. PJS is referenced in more than a quarter of the embattled group's profiles of those "journalists" supposedly killed by Israel. The CPJ—which descended into turmoil and infighting after the Free Beacon revealed that its list includes many confirmed terrorists and also exposed the virulent anti-Israel sentiment among its board members—is currently conducting a wholesale review of its list.
PJS also maintains a formal partnership with the IFJ, the world's largest press advocacy group, where its president, Nasser Abu Bakr, also serves as a senior vice president. The IFJ was notably caught in late July by the Free Beacon quietly erasing the names of terrorists from its own widely cited list of slain journalists, which is also built primarily on data supplied by PJS. Abu Bakr, meanwhile, allegedly sits on the Fatah Party's so-called Revolutionary Council, the main parliamentary body of the Palestinian government's largest faction, challenging the narrative that he is a neutral media advocate.
"PJS, despite being a pro-terrorist organization, serves as the wellspring from which international journalism organizations wet their lips before slandering Israel with the narrative that the IDF deliberately targets journalists," HonestReporting said in its report. "With PJS as a major source, it comes as no surprise that CPJ and IFJ databases are rife with terrorists passed off as journalists."
PJS is one of the "most cited source[s] on CPJ's database of slain Gazan journalists, cited for information about 58 media workers," according to HonestReporting's independent audit. "This accounts for 26.6% of the 218 Gazan journalists on the CPJ database that were reviewed by HonestReporting. This includes 9 removed individuals." HonestReporting separately determined in late August that CPJ still includes at least 120 names linked to Hamas and other terror factions on its list, well over half of the 209 names included.
The IFJ, meanwhile, states online that it works "closely with its affiliate, the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate to verify information in real time" before including individuals on its own highly scrutinized list of slain Gaza journalists. The Free Beacon first reported in July that the IFJ removed eight confirmed terrorists from its list with no public acknowledgment, fuelling questions about the organization's credibility and repeated claims that "the Israeli army has deliberately targeted journalists."
Abu Bakr and his PJS are far from neutral observers in Israel's conflict with Hamas, according to HonestReporting, which bluntly describes the group as "a radical and partisan" front organization "led by a pro-terrorist politician."
Abu Bakr, as well as PJS Gaza branch head Luay Nahed Mohammed al-Ghoul, have both "repeatedly expressed support for and advocated on behalf of terrorism and terrorists." Abu Bakr, for instance, has publicly "posted martyr posters" for deceased terrorists, hailing them as "heroes" for killing Jewish civilians.
In an April 2024 Facebook posting, Abu Bakr mourned the death of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine cell commander and so-called freedom fighter Walid Daqqa. The following year, he eulogized the late PFLP spokesman Ghassan Kanafani.
"On the anniversary of the martyrdom of journalist, writer and thinker Ghassan Kanafani, one of the most prominent pillars of Palestinian national journalism, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate renews its loyalty to those who wrote in blood for Palestine, raised the Palestinian national flag high, and remained faithful to the covenant with the homeland," Abu Bakr wrote in a separate Arabic Facebook eulogy from July 2022.
Abu Bakr, HonestReporting wrote, is "a proponent of violence more broadly, describing in January 2023 how the 'Fatah army in Gaza' was 'ready to confront Netanyahu's new fascist government,' and backed the violence that emanated out of Jenin that same year."
"Jenin and its heroic camp continue to offer up their finest young heroes for the freedom and independence of Palestine," Abu Bakr said in 2023, during Israeli operations to stifle terrorism in Jenin. "Netanyahu, the intruder on this land, will fall, and Jenin will defeat him, and the people of the land, which is kneaded with the blood of the honorable, will defeat him."
Al-Ghoul, meanwhile, has issued support for Marwan Barghouti, the infamous terrorist who is serving life in prison for orchestrating terror plots by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. In April of this year, al-Ghoul praised "Fatah co-founder and military wing leader Khalil al-Wazir, the architect of the First Intifada and cross-border raids from Lebanon," according to Arabic-language social media posts unearthed in HonestReporting's investigation.
"PJS, a little-known, biased, pro-terrorism organization, is the wellspring of the claim that the IDF targeted journalists," HonestReporting told the Free Beacon in a statement. "It has used larger mainstream journalist rights organizations to launder its allegations and pass off terrorists as journalists, and help these operatives try to strike one last blow against Israel by using their deaths as ammunition."
"It is no wonder that the CPJ and IFJ Gazan journalists lists are rife with terrorists and fake media workers—both organizations have been used to launder a myth created by PJS, whose leadership openly advocates for terrorists with innocent blood on their hands," HonestReporting added.
Both the CPJ and IFJ did not respond to Free Beacon requests for comment on the former's reliance on PJS and the latter's partnership with it. PJS also did not respond to an email request for comment on its activity and its founder’s social media postings.
PJS—while billing itself as an objective professional association—was peddling claims that Israel intentionally kills journalists well before Hamas's bloody Oct. 7 attacks, using the claim as a cudgel to delegitimize Israel on the international stage. Abu Bakr's ties to the Fatah Party also undermine the claims that PJS is strictly a professional society.
Just a few months before the war in Gaza began, PJS "claimed that Palestinian journalists were being systematically targeted during the fighting between the IDF and terrorists in Jenin in order to 'cover the occupation's crimes.'" It made the same claim a year earlier, "when there were clashes in Nablus – ostensibly there was the 'systematic settler targeting of Palestinian journalists.'"
PJS reached for the same playbook again just a day after Oct. 7, issuing an official statement that claimed the journalists being killed in Gaza were victims of a "systematic policy committed by the Israeli occupation against journalists and press institutions."
PJS has also "advocated on behalf of imprisoned terrorists," HonestReporting found. In December 2022, for instance, "PJS called on Palestinian media outlets to dedicate their coverage to imprisoned terrorists following the death of former Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leader Nasser Abu Hamid in prison." Several months earlier, "PJS sent a delegation to join a protest calling for the release of terrorists at the Gaza Red Cross headquarters, with posters emblazoned with the faces of terrorists and the logos of terrorist organizations."
On its website, the PJS proudly states that it "will not engage in any programs or relationships, nor adopt any positions, that promote normalization with the occupying state."
"The databases produced in cooperation with PJS have been used to promote a narrative that Israel was deliberately targeting Palestinian journalists," according to HonestReporting. "Supposedly, this policy to target journalists was done to hide war crimes and genocide. Yet this has been a narrative pushed by PJS prior to the October 7 War."
