When the Internet Goes Dark, the Truth Goes With It

Alaqad says that because traditional media outlets pick and choose what to show their audiences, losing on-the-ground journalists means losing parts of the truth. “When the people are being silenced and censored, and they don’t have a space for them to talk or a platform to express what’s happening, and for us to see what’s happening through their eyes, there will always be limitations [on] how much we know,” she says.

In every crisis, when communication breaks down, accountability is lost and injustice becomes easier to ignore. “Injustice is super loud,” Alaqad says. “Justice needs to be louder.”

Targeted

Journalists are also silenced permanently. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) wrote in December 2025 that 67 media professionals were killed that year, 43 percent of whom were killed in Gaza by Israeli armed forces. The total number of journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 has risen to over 220, according to the RSF. The UN estimate sits at more than 260.

“When we look at it within the framework of imposing a ban on the foreign press entering Gaza now, more than two years into that war, when they are restricting the free movement of journalists within Gaza and into Gaza, when we are talking about an unprecedented massacre of journalists, the targeting of media offices and the targeting of communication infrastructure just becomes another piece of that puzzle, which aims at imposing a media blackout,” Dagher says. Israel has repeatedly denied claims that it targets journalists or media infrastructure.

“Killing journalists means killing and silencing the truth,” Alaqad says. In her experience, this strategy works on multiple levels—killing journalists means fewer people reporting on the ground, but equally, it turns journalists into a threat to the people. “This is also sending a message to the people that all journalists are a threat, don’t talk to journalists, stay away from journalists,” she explains.

She recalls her mother begging her not to wear her press vest and helmet. Meant to signify neutrality and protect journalists in the field, instead, it made her feel like a target. “It’s supposed to protect, but on the contrary, it actually puts risk on your life and even on your beloved ones and the ones around you,” she explains.

Alaqad says it was not always this way. Early on, people would greet journalists, offer them food, and thank them for their work. “After a couple of months, when they’d seen journalists getting targeted, Palestinians started treating journalists differently,” she says.

To report in Gaza was to work inside a landscape where time itself was unstable and not guaranteed. Plans rarely extended beyond daylight. Conversations ended abruptly. Addresses became memorials overnight. “The only certainty in Gaza is uncertainty,” Alaqad says.

She recalls interviewing families and planning to return the next day, only to find that the people she spoke with had been killed in airstrikes.

She has since left Gaza, and is pursuing a master’s degree in media studies at the American University of Beirut. She received the Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Endowed Scholarship, named for the Palestinian journalist killed by Israeli forces in May 2022.

Digital Truths

Going viral on social media helped her reach people, but it also put her at risk. “It showed millions of people around the world what’s happening in Gaza, but at what cost? Being in Gaza could cost you your life, especially as a journalist,” she says.

Despite the reach of digital reporting, she does not trust its permanence. Accounts disappear, posts are removed and videos are lost. What is available today may be gone tomorrow.