Not even remotely comparable. But you're just desperate to make parallels so that you can normalize your party's sprint into facism.
US 2024 Presidential Election
- Thread starter gorfias
- Start date
I have a question. What do you think would have happened if they actually got a hold of Pence?
Most likely scenario is the dog that actually catches the car: just a bunch more barking.
At least assault, possibly kill him depending on who exactly in the crowd got ahold of him. Same as if they'd got to any Dem members of Congress.
They wouldn't have hung him from those gallows though, not successfully at least. I actually agree with tstorm that those gallows wouldn't hold the weight and aren't tall enough besides unless there's a trapdoor in the platform. But I said as much back in 2021.
Basically they weren't going to hang Mike Pence from those gallows for engineering reasons, not for intent reasons.
this guy mangeed to cover the atrocities and even the failures of the UK/US press more clear and concisely than most legacy media in a video not even labeled or promoted as doing so. though is less about the state of news media in the modern era than the problematic relationships between western foreign policy/neocolonialism and the editorial structure/staff of most legacy media involving privileges like "insider access" (also prevalent in tech journalism btw, quick shout-out to Ed Zitron and his AI industry coverage accurately predicting the trajectory)
Trump Signs Order in Attempt to Vastly Reshape U.S. Elections
Read more here.
www.democracydocket.com
I would have send the same. It might even be only a couple of hundred that would have killed Pence if they got their first. (I don't think it would have been over a thousand)
I was going to suggest a third reason. Those guys wouldn't have waited for the gallows. Maybe they try to hang him up after he's dead
This metaphor really doesn't work in this scenario. They had the backing of Trump. (I don't mean to kill Pence. Just stop him. Trump did not care if Pence lived or died.) Trump had pre-deflated all the tired and cut the fuel lines
Maybe this still leads to more barking. I'd have guessed assualt but it really depends on who got to him first
Well the entire electorate knew that Trump would try to do an Orban and game the system to ensure Republicans could never be voted out again. Everyone knew. His supporters, his opponents and those that just refused to do the right thing to 'teach the dems a lesson'' or some gibberish like that. The electorate knew and sufficient number of them were apparently fine with it.Haha, yes, more!Trump Signs Order in Attempt to Vastly Reshape U.S. Elections
Read more here.
So enjoy the permanent Republican misrule, American electorate.
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The men disappeared to El Salvador because of their tattoos
The Trump administration sent Venezuelans to El Salvador’s most infamous prison. Their families are looking for answers.
www.motherjones.com
hadn't noticed till someone else mentioned it but now they have, is kinda worrying how most ppl don't appear concerned with what's being done to those the admin's designated as "illegal" almost as if the framing has already been passively accepted, without even basic sense of self-preservation that it could very easily expand to them also, given time/context
what happened to the forums? only left for like a day and it's already infested with bunchonumbersnamebots“You’re Here Because of Your Tattoos”
The Trump administration sent Venezuelans to El Salvador’s most infamous prison. Their families are looking for answers.
Noah Lanard and Isabela Dias21 hours ago
Mother Jones illustration; Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times/Getty; Photos courtesy Génesis Lozada, Joseph Giardina, Arturo Suárez, and María Alvarado
On Friday, March 14, Arturo Suárez Trejo called his wife, Nathali Sánchez, from an immigration detention center in Texas. Suárez, a 33-year-old native of Caracas, Venezuela, explained that his deportation flight had been delayed. He told his wife he would be home soon. Suárez did not want to go back to Venezuela. Still, there was at least a silver lining: In December, Sánchez had given birth to their daughter, Nahiara. Suárez would finally have a chance to meet the three-month-old baby girl he had only ever seen on screens.
But, Sánchez told Mother Jones, she has not heard from Suárez since. Instead, last weekend, she found herself zooming in on a photo the government of El Salvador published of Venezuelan men the Trump administration had sent to President Nayib Bukele’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. “I realized that one of them was my husband,” she said. “I recognized him by the tattoo [on his neck], by his ear, and by his chin. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew it was him.” The photo Sánchez examined—and a highly produced propaganda video promoted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the White House—showed Venezuelans shackled in prison uniforms as they were pushed around by guards and had their heads shaved.
The tattoo on Suárez’s neck is of a colibrí, a hummingbird. His wife said it is meant to symbolize “harmony and good energy.” She said his other tattoos, like a palm tree on his hand—an homage to Suárez’s late mother’s use of a Venezuelan expression about God being greater than a coconut tree—were similarly innocuous. Nevertheless, they may be why Suárez has been effectively disappeared by the US government into a Salvadoran mega-prison.
Mother Jones has spoken with friends, family members, and lawyers of ten men sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration based on allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan organized crime group Tren de Aragua. All of them say their relatives have tattoos and believe that is why their loved ones were targeted. But they vigorously reject the idea that their sons, brothers, and husbands have anything to do with Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration recently labeled a foreign terrorist organization. The families have substantiated those assertions to Mother Jones, including—in many cases—by providing official documents attesting to their relatives’ lack of criminal histories in Venezuela. Such evidence might have persuaded US judges that the men were not part of any criminal organization had the Trump administration not deliberately deprived them of due process.
On March 14, President Donald Trump quietly signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act—a 1798 law last used during World War II. The order declared that the United States is under invasion by Tren de Aragua. It is the first time in US history that the 18th-century statute, which gives the president extraordinary powers to detain and deport noncitizens, has been used absent a Congressional declaration of war. The administration then employed the wartime authority unlocked by the Alien Enemies Act to quickly load Venezuelans onto deportation flights from Texas to El Salvador.
In response to a class action lawsuit brought by the ACLU and Democracy Forward, federal judge James Boasberg almost immediately blocked the Trump White House from using the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport Venezuelans, and directed any planes already in the air to turn around. But in defiance of that order, the administration kept jets flying to El Salvador. Now Suárez and others like him are trapped in the Central American nation with no clear way to contact their relatives or lawyers.
Suárez, whose story has also been reported on by the Venezuelan outlet El Estímulo, is an aspiring pop musician who records under the name SuarezVzla. His older brother, Nelson Suárez, said his sibling’s tattoos were intended to help him “stand out” from the crowd. “As Venezuelans, we can’t be in our own country so we came to a country where there is supposedly freedom of expression, where there are human rights, where there’s the strongest and most robust democracy,” Nelson said. “Yet the government is treating us like criminals based only on our tattoos, or because we’re Venezuelan, without a proper investigation or a prosecutor offering any evidence.” (All interviews with family members for this story were conducted in Spanish.)
The Justice Department’s website states that Suárez’s immigration case is still pending and that he is due to appear before a judge next Wednesday. Records provided by Nelson Suárez show that Arturo has no criminal record in Venezuela. Nor, according to his family, does Suárez have one in Colombia and Chile, where he lived after leaving Venezuela in 2016. They say he is one of millions of Venezuelans who sought a better life elsewhere after fleeing one of the worst economic collapses in modern history. (Just a few years ago, Secretary Rubio, then a senator from Florida, stressed that failure to protect Venezuelans from deportation “would result in a very real death sentence for countless” people who had “fled their country.”)
The stories shared with Mother Jones suggest that Trump’s immigration officials actively sought out Venezuelan men with tattoos before the Alien Enemies Act was invoked and then removed them to El Salvador within hours of the presidential proclamation taking effect.
“This doesn’t just happen overnight,” said immigration lawyer Joseph Giardina, who represents one of the men now in El Salvador, Frizgeralth de Jesus Cornejo Pulgar. “They don’t get a staged reception in El Salvador and a whole wing for them in a maximum-security prison…It was a planned operation, that was carried out quickly and in violation of the judge’s order. They knew what they were doing.”
Arturo Suárez performing and speaking with his baby daughter from detention.Courtesy Arturo Suárez
The White House has yet to provide evidence that the hundreds of Venezuelans flown to El Salvador—without an opportunity to challenge their labeling as Tren de Aragua members and “terrorists”—had actual ties to the gang. When pressed on the criteria used for their identification, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed to unspecified “intelligence” deployed to arrest the Venezuelans she has referred to as “heinous monsters.” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has insisted—without providing specific details—that the public should trust ICE to have correctly targeted the Venezuelans based on “criminal investigations,” social media posts, and surveillance.
Robert Cerna, an acting field office director for ICE’s removal operations branch, said the agency “did not simply rely on social media posts, photographs of the alien displaying gang-related hand gestures, or tattoos alone.” But Cerna also acknowledged that many of the Venezuelans deported under the Alien Enemies Act had no criminal history in the United States, a fact he twisted into an argument to seemingly justify the summary deportations without due process. “The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat,” Cerna wrote. “In fact, based upon their association with TdA, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
The relatives who talked to Mother Jones painted a vastly different picture from the US government’s description of the men as terrorists or hardened criminals. Many said their loved ones were tricked into thinking they were being sent back to Venezuela, not to a third country. (The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to a detailed request for comment asking for any evidence that the Venezuelans named in this article have ties to Tren de Aragua.)
Before leaving for the United States in late 2023, Neri Alvarado Borges lived in Yaritagua, a small city in north central Venezuela. His father is a farmer and his mother supports his 15-year-old brother, Nelyerson, who has autism.
Neri Alvarado with his brother Nelyerson in 2023.Courtesy María Alvarado
Alvarado’s older sister, María, stressed in a call from Venezuela that her brother has no connection to Tren de Aragua. She said her brother was deeply devoted to helping Nelyerson—explaining that one of his three tattoos is an autism awareness ribbon with his brother’s name on it and that he used to teach swimming classes for children with developmental disabilities. “Anyone who’s talked to Neri for even an hour can tell you what a great person he is. Truly, as a family, we are completely devastated to see him going through something so unjust—especially knowing that he’s never done anything wrong,” María said. “He’s someone who, as they say, wouldn’t even hurt a fly.”
Still, Alvarado was detained by ICE outside his apartment in early February and brought in for questioning, Juan Enrique Hernández, the owner of two Venezuelan bakeries in the Dallas area and Alvarado’s boss, told Mother Jones. One day later, Hernández went to see him in detention and asked him to explain what had happened. Alvarado told Hernández that an ICE agent had asked him if he knew why he had been picked up; Alvarado said that he did not. “Well, you’re here because of your tattoos,” the ICE agent replied, according to Hernández. “We’re finding and questioning everyone who has tattoos.”
The agent then asked Alvarado to explain his tattoos and for permission to review his phone for any evidence of gang activity. “You’re clean,” the ICE officer told Alvarado after he complied, according to both Hernández and María Alvarado. “I’m going to put down here that you have nothing to do with Tren de Aragua.”
For reasons that remain unclear, Hernández said that another official in ICE’s Dallas field office decided to keep Alvarado detained. María Alvarado said her brother told her the same story at the time.
Hernández spoke to Alvarado shortly before he was sent to El Salvador. “There are 90 of us here. We all have tattoos. We were all detained for the same reasons,” he recalled Alvarado telling him. “From what they told me, we are going to be deported.” Both assumed that meant being sent back to Venezuela.
Hernández, a US citizen who moved to the United States from Venezuela nearly three decades ago, searched desperately for Alvarado when he didn’t show up in his home country that weekend. He was nearly certain that Alvarado was in El Salvador when he first spoke to Mother Jones on Thursday. “I have very few friends,” he said. “Very few friends and I have been in this country for 27 years. I let Neri into my house because he is a stand-up guy…Because you can tell when someone is good or bad.” Later that day, on Alvarado’s 25th birthday, Hernández got confirmation that his friend was in El Salvador when CBS News published a list of the 238 people now at CECOT.
A centerpiece of Bukele’s brutal anti-gang crackdown, CECOT is known for due process violations and extreme confinement conditions. Last year, CNN obtained rare access to the remote prison, which can hold up to 40,000 people. The network found prisoners living in crowded cells with metal beds that had no mattresses or sheets, an open toilet, and a cement basin. Visitation and time outdoors are not allowed. A photographer who was allowed into the prison as the Venezuelans arrived earlier this month wrote for Time magazine that he witnessed them being beaten, humiliated, and stripped naked.
The Trump administration has indicated in court records that the El Salvador operation was weeks, if not months, in the making. In a declaration, a State Department official said arrangements with the Salvadoran and Venezuelan governments for the countries to take back US deportees allegedly associated with Tren de Aragua had been made after weeks of talks “at the highest levels”—including ones involving Secretary of State Rubio—and “were the result of intensive and delicate negotiations.”
As part of the deal, the US government will pay El Salvador $6 million to hold the Venezuelan men for at least one year. Calling the agreements a “foreign policy matter,” Rubio has claimed the outsourcing of deportees’ detention to Bukele’s “excellent prison system” is saving money for US taxpayers.
It is unclear if, or when, anyone sent to CECOT will be able to return to Venezuela. A Human Rights Watch program director noted in a declaration that the organization “is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison.” During an appeals court hearing on March 24, the ACLU’s lead counsel Lee Gelernt said, “We’re looking at people now who may be in a Salvadoran prison the rest of their lives.”
Neri Alvarado working at the bakery and the autism awareness tattoo with his brother’s name.Courtesy María Alvarado
Joseph Giardina’s client Frizgeralth de Jesus Cornejo Pulgar thought he was set to return to Venezuela on a deportation flight. Carlos, Frizgeralth’s older sibling, said his 26-year-old brother called their sister, who lives in Tennessee, from the El Valle detention center in Texas. He said Frizgeralth told her he was going to be deported to Venezuela later that day. “He was happy that he was going to be here with us,” Carlos said from Caracas in a video call with Mother Jones.
But Frizgeralth never arrived. Eventually, the family heard from the girlfriend of another Venezuelan set to be deported on the same flight as Carlos. She had identified him in videos shared on social media of the men who had been sent to the prison in El Salvador. On March 19, Carlos started scouring the internet and spotted his brother in a TikTok video. In it, Frizgeralth has his freshly shaved head pressed down, a rose tattoo on his neck peeking out from under a white t-shirt.
“We felt very powerless and in a lot of pain,” Carlos said. “To see how they mistreat a person who doesn’t deserve any of that. It’s not fair.”
Frizgeralth arrived in the United States in June 2024 after crossing the Darién Gap and waiting several months in Mexico for a CBP One appointment. The Biden-era program, which the Trump administration has since terminated, allowed migrants to schedule a date to present lawfully at a US port of entry. Carlos said Border patrol agents let Frizgeralth’s girlfriend and their other brother, as well as two friends, through but they held Frizgeralth back. He ended up detained at Winn Correctional Center, an ICE facility in Louisiana.
In messages to his family from detention, Frizgeralth expressed concern he was being investigated because of his tattoos. He explained that none of the 20 or so images—including one on his chest of an angel holding a gun—he has tattooed on his body have any connection to gang activity. He also described feeling discouraged from hearing stories in detention of Venezuelans who had recently been redetained and said ICE agents picked them up over suspicions about their tattoos.
Frizgeralth even had a declaration from his tattoo artist confirming the harmless nature of the artwork. “I never imagined being imprisoned just for getting a tattoo,” Frizgeralth, who owns a streetwear clothing brand with Carlos, wrote. “I never imagined being separated from my family. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, not even my worst enemy if I had one. It’s horrible, it’s mental torture every day.”
Like Suárez and Alvarado, Frizgeralth had no criminal record in Venezuela, documents show. Giardina said his client also had no known criminal history in the United States. Nor did he have a final deportation order. During his preliminary court hearings, the US government never claimed or presented evidence that Frizgeralth had ties to Tren de Aragua. “He was doing everything he was supposed to do,” Giardina said. “He got vetted and checked when he came into the country. He was in detention the entire time. It’s insanity.” If anything, Giardina said, his client had a strong claim for asylum based on political persecution. He said Frizgeralth was being targeted by the colectivos, paramilitary groups linked to the Maduro regime.
About a week prior to his deportation, they moved Frizgeralth to Texas. His next hearing, which is scheduled for April 10, still appears on the immigration court’s online system. “To detain them in this maximum security prison with no access to lawyers, no charges, just because you’re saying they’re terrorists…,” Giardina said. “I mean, what the hell?”
Génesis Lozada Sánchez said she and her younger brother Wuilliam are from a rural Venezuelan “cattle town” called Coloncito near Colombia. Following Venezuela’s economic collapse, both she and Wuilliam lived in Bogota, where her brother saved up for the journey to the United States by making pants at a clothing factory. After he reached the border last January, Wuilliam was detained for more than a year, Génesis said.
On Friday, March 14, he called a cousin in the United States to say that he was about to be deported to Venezuela. “But to everyone’s surprise, that’s not what happened. They were kidnapped,” Génesis said. “Why do I say kidnapped? These people have no ties to El Salvador. They haven’t committed any crimes there. And they’re not even Salvadoran. They don’t even cross into El Salvador after going through the Darién Gap on their way to the United States. So, it’s a kidnapping. They tricked these guys into signing papers by telling them they were being sent to Venezuela.”
Like other men sent to El Salvador, Wuilliam has tattoos. But Génesis said that they have nothing to do with Tren de Aragua and that her brother has no criminal record. His goal had been to make enough money in the United States to help support their parents and to save up enough to hopefully open a clothing factory back home.
Other reporting and court briefs further support the families’ suspicions that their loved ones were primarily targeted for deportation because of their tattoos. In one instance, a professional soccer player, whose attorney said had fled Venezuela after protesting against the Maduro regime and being tortured, was accused of gang membership based on a tattoo similar to the logo of his favorite team, Real Madrid.
John Dutton, a Houston-based immigration attorney, said that he started noticing ICE officers detaining Venezuelans during check-ins due to their tattoos earlier this year. “If they notice they have a tattoo, they’re just taking them into custody,” he explained. “No more questions to ask.” Dutton estimated he now has about a dozen clients who have been arrested because of tattoos.
One of his clients, Henrry Albornoz Quintero, was due in court for a bond hearing last Wednesday after being taken into detention at a routine ICE check-in. “I show up. The judge asked me where my client is,” the Houston lawyer said. “I asked the same question to the DHS attorney. She looked at her notes, shuffled papers around as if she’s gonna find the answer in there, looks up, and said, ‘Judge, I don’t know.’”
Dutton told the judge that his client might be in El Salvador; his relatives had recognized him in one of the images of people at CECOT. The judge then decided not to hear the case on the grounds that he no longer had jurisdiction. “You could tell he wanted to help me,” Dutton added. “He just couldn’t. There’s nothing he could do.”
The next day, Albornoz’s name appeared on the list of people imprisoned in El Salvador. So far, Albornoz is the only one of Dutton’s clients to be sent there. His wife is nine months pregnant with their first child.
“They didn’t just deport these people and then set them free,” says Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University. “They sent them to El Salvador, where that country, at the behest of the United States, is incarcerating them for at least a year in their prison system. This is not just deportation without due process. This is imprisonment without due process in a foreign prison system that has terrible conditions. That’s a pretty blatant violation of the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, which says that you can’t take away people’s life, liberty or property without due process of law.”
Until Thursday, March 20, Barbara Alexandra Manzo still wasn’t sure if her brother Lainerke Daniel Manzo Lovera was among those sent to El Salvador and transferred to CECOT. The family hadn’t heard from him since that Saturday, when he called from El Paso, Texas, to say they were deporting him to Venezuela or Mexico. Her confirmation also came when she saw his name on the CBS News list.
Barbara Alexandra told Mother Jones that Lainerke didn’t even have a tattoo before he left Venezuela in December 2023. He got one—a clock on his arm—while living and working in Mexico, waiting for a CBP One appointment. It was a gift from a roommate who had been given a date before he did. Last October, Lainerke showed up at the border and was sent to ICE detention; first in San Diego, then briefly in Arizona. He had a court hearing scheduled for March 26.
“My son went to look for a better future, the American Dream,” his mother Eglee Xiomara said in a video. “And it didn’t come true. That was the worst trip he has ever made in his life.”
Lainerke has yet to meet his six-month-old daughter, who was born in the United States. “He’s never been in prison,” Barbara Alexandra said. “[We’re wondering] if he’s ok or if something is happening to him. And we’ll never know because we have no recourse.”
Nelson Suárez fears that he, too, could meet the same fate as his brother Arturo, the Venezuelan musician. Even during the first Trump administration, the fact that Nelson has Temporary Protected Status and a pending asylum case would have been enough to protect him from deportation. But there are no guarantees that it will be now. If Judge Boasberg’s temporary restraining order is lifted or overturned, he could be immediately deported to Venezuela, or sent to El Salvador, without due process. He doesn’t know if he will walk out of a scheduled check-in with ICE in May free or in chains.
“I’m really scared,” he said last week. “My three daughters are here with me. My wife is here. My kids are in school. I don’t know what could happen. Since this happened to my brother, I really haven’t been able to sleep. I have no peace, no sense of calm. I’m afraid to go out on the street. But at the same time, we have to go out to work and get things done.”
But dude... remember the Dems are evil. There was no possible way to think that voting for them wouldnt have resulted in the exact same state
But the cops ARE allowed to wear masks when they disappear you
Hunger looms again in Gaza as WFP food stocks begin to run out | World Food Programme
GAZA, Palestine – Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are again at risk of severe hunger and malnutrition as humanitarian food stocks in the Strip dwindle and borders remain closed to aid. Meanwhile, the expansion of military activity in Gaza is severely disrupting food assistance operations...
www.wfp.org
so many journalists killed
Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war - Committee to Protect Journalists
The Israel-Gaza war has taken an unprecedented toll on Gazan journalists since Israel declared war on Hamas following its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. As of March 28, 2025, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 173 journalists and media workers were among the more than tens of...
cpj.org
the above article goes on longer than a post character limit will allow, covering the various individual details known so far
Palestinian journalist Sami Shehadeh, wounded in an Israeli strike, lies on the floor at Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 12. (Photo: Reuters/Doaa Rouqa)
Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war
February 4, 2025 2:00 AM EST
The Israel-Gaza war has taken an unprecedented toll on Gazan journalists since Israel declared war on Hamas following its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
As of March 28, 2025, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 173 journalists and media workers were among the more than tens of thousands killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, famine, the displacement of 90% of Gaza’s population, and the destruction of 80% of its buildings. CPJ is investigating more than 130 additional cases of potential killings, arrests and injuries, but many are difficult to document amid these harsh conditions.
“Since the war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest price – their lives – for their reporting. Without protection, equipment, international presence, communications, or food and water, they are still doing their crucial jobs to tell the world the truth,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth. Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”
Journalists are civilians and are protected by International Law. Deliberately targeting civilians constitutes a war crime. In May, the International Criminal Court announced it was seeking arrest warrant applications for Hamas and Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
INDEX
To date, CPJ has determined that at least 13 journalists and two media workers were directly targeted by Israeli forces in killings which CPJ classifies as murders: Issam Abdallah, Hamza Al Dahdouh, Mustafa Thuraya, Ismail Al Ghoul, Rami Al Refee, Ghassan Najjar, Wissam Kassem, Mohammed Reda, Ayman Al Gedi, Faisal Abu Al Qumsan, Mohammed Al-Ladaa, Fadi Hassouna, Ibrahim Sheikh Ali, Mahmoud Islim Al-Basos, and Hossam Shabat.
CPJ is still researching the details for confirmation in at least 20 other cases that indicate possible targeting.
Two journalists were killed and three were injured in Gaza in the days surrounding the war’s one-year anniversary on October 7, 2024, prompting CPJ to renew its call for an end to impunity in Israel’s attacks on journalists.
As of March 28:
CPJ is also investigating numerous unconfirmed reports of other journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt, or threatened, and of damage to media offices and journalists’ homes.
- 173 journalists and media workers were confirmed killed: 165 Palestinian, two Israeli, and six Lebanese.
- 59 journalists were reported injured.
- 2 journalists were reported missing.
- 75 journalists were reported arrested.
- Multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.
The list of killed journalists documented in our database includes names based on information obtained from CPJ’s sources in the region and media reports. It includes all journalists* involved in news-gathering activity. It is not always immediately clear whether all of these journalists were covering the conflict at the time of their deaths, but CPJ has included them in its count as it investigates their circumstances.
The list is being updated on a regular basis, with names being removed if CPJ confirms that those members of the media were not working journalists at the time they were killed, injured, or went missing.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials have repeatedly told media outlets that the army does not deliberately target journalists. It also told agencies shortly after the war started that it could not guarantee the safety of journalists. CPJ has called for an end to the longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF.
United Nations experts have raised concerns over the killings of journalists, saying in a February statement that they were “alarmed at the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers who have been killed, attacked, injured and detained in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in Gaza, in recent months blatantly disregarding international law.”
Shot From Above: The Dangerous Work of Drone Journalists in Gaza - bellingcat
Examining the high price those documenting devastation in Gaza pay.
www.bellingcat.com
(Interactive image here not transferring)
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 165 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023. In fact, according to CPJ, last year was the deadliest year for journalists worldwide since they began documenting deaths in 1992.
Gathering aerial footage of Gaza is a dangerous task, and Bellingcat along with our partners at Forbidden Stories, Le Monde, Die Zeit, Der Standard, Paper Trail Media, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and RFI identified several cases where drone journalists were killed or injured shortly after capturing aerial images.
The Gaza Project is a collaborative investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, involving more than 40 journalists representing 12 media outlets (Forbidden Stories, Paper Trail Media, RFI, Bellingcat, Die Zeit, Le Monde, France 24, ARIJ, The Seventh Eye/Shakuf +972 Magazine, ZDF and Der Standard) who continued the work of Gazan journalists and investigated about the threats and difficulties they are facing.
Illustration (c) Ann Kiernan.
Israel said early on in the war it could not guarantee safety of journalists in Gaza. Hamas has also been known to use drones to target Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions and has used drone footage in propaganda videos. The investigative consortium contacted the IDF about the cases mentioned in this story, how they determined the drones posed a threat, the IDF rules of engagement with drones and how they define someone as a terrorist. The IDF did not answer specific questions about individual cases, nor did they provide further details about the two individuals in this piece, but they did tell us the IDF rejects outright the allegation of systemic attack on journalists.
“The IDF cannot address operational directives and regulations as they are classified. However, every operational action or strike is mandated by IDF directives, which instruct commanders to apply the basic rules of the law of armed conflict,” they said.
The full cost of the war still needs to be assessed through on the ground visits, when a permanent ceasefire is agreed, but in the meantime, satellite imagery combined with drone footage and other imagery captured by journalists in Gaza has been critical to lay bare the level of destruction.
The full cost of the war still needs to be assessed through on the ground visits, when a permanent ceasefire is agreed, but in the meantime, satellite imagery combined with drone footage and other imagery captured by journalists in Gaza has been critical to lay bare the level of destruction.
For instance, a brief drone video lasting just over one minute and published in January this year by the AFP news agency after the first phase of the recent ceasefire was implemented, shows the rubble of scores of hollowed-out homes in Rafah. Some are completely levelled, others severely damaged.
The most recent interim damage assessment compiled by the World Bank, European Union and United Nations estimates almost 300,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed across Gaza and that 95% of hospitals are non-functional.
In order to continue the reporting on the extent of damage caused by the war in Gaza, Bellingcat and our partners are sharing satellite imagery and using a 3D model technique called photogrammetry to capture and show the areas the journalists had been filming or were unable to report on.
Abdallah Al-Hajj: Documenting Al-Shati Refugee Camp
On February 15, 2024, about six months into the conflict, the United Nations shared a short video on social media showing dozens of hollowed out or partially collapsed buildings located in Gaza City’s Al-Shati Refugee Camp. The video starts with a birds-eye view filmed by a drone that shows entire blocks levelled in the compact neighbourhood.
Over the course of more than 12 months of conflict, Al-Shati Refugee Camp saw heavy destruction.
The neighbourhood and its surroundings were an early target for IDF ground operations inside Gaza, with the IDF announcing in mid-November 2023 that it had completely captured the area. The IDF said it was a main Hamas stronghold. One video geolocated by a Geoconfirmed volunteer shows the heavily damaged coastal side of the Al-Shati Refugee Camp a year later. The camp also abuts an archeological site to the north that was potentially damaged by the ground operation and airstrikes, as previously documented by Bellingcat and Forensic Architecture.
The images shared by UNRWA were filmed using a drone by Palestinian journalist Abdallah Al-Hajj. Nine days after they were posted online, he was back filming in the same area when he was seriously injured in an Israeli army strike, losing both his legs.
Previous photos taken by Al-Hajj had been shared by UNRWA earlier that month and almost 300 of his photos were included on UNRWA’s film and photo archive, with some aerial photos taken by Al-Hajj as early as 2020. He had previously worked as a photojournalist for the Jerusalem-based, Palestinian newspaper Al Quds as well as other media.
Speaking to our partners Forbidden Stories, Al-Hajj said he felt a journalistic responsibility to continue filming in Gaza during the war but took several precautions including only filming when clashes were over and when there was no immediate conflict in the vicinity. On the day he was injured, he said he’d only filmed with the drone for about five minutes and completed the filming when he was hit. He told our partners at Forbidden Stories he wasn’t wearing his press vest because he felt identifying himself as a journalist put him at greater risk.
Speaking to our partners Forbidden Stories, Al-Hajj said he felt a journalistic responsibility to continue filming in Gaza during the war but took several precautions including only filming when clashes were over and when there was no immediate conflict in the vicinity. On the day he was injured, he said he’d only filmed with the drone for about five minutes and completed the filming when he was hit. He told our partners at Forbidden Stories he wasn’t wearing his press vest because he felt identifying himself as a journalist put him at greater risk.
The IDF previously told Le Monde that it had “eliminated by an IAF aircraft” a “terrorist cell using a drone, posing an imminent threat to forces in the Shati area.” Apparently the same strike was referenced in this reporting from February 25.
It’s not clear where the threatened forces referred to in the IDF statement were. It was reported that the IDF conducted a two-week-long raid in Al-Shati Refugee Camp in early February but it was apparently finished by February 15.
Based on SkySat imagery from Planet Labs, IDF vehicles were visible earlier in the month on February 8 about 2.5km from Al-Shati Refugee Camp near Gaza City’s Islamic University campus. The vehicles were gone a week later in February 14 imagery.
Photos and videos show that the IDF were present about 3.5km south of Al-Shati Refugee Camp along the Al-Rashid Road throughout the month of February, though it’s not clear if they were still present at the location when Al-Hajj was filming.
After the strike, SkySat imagery from Planet Labs shows that Al-Hajj’s home south of Gaza City in the Zeitoun neighbourhood was destroyed. It was standing in February 24 imagery but in February 28 imagery showed that it was gone.
We asked the IDF about Al-Hajj’s case including asking them to explain the immediate threat that was posed by the drone, why he was hit and what information they had about him but they did not respond to specific questions about this case.
Al-Hajj told our partners Forbidden Stories the accusation that he was part of a terrorist cell or affiliated with Hamas was a “false and unfounded charge.”
Additionally he said he was checked by IDF troops twice after the incident, in Al-Shifa Hospital where he was admitted and again when he left the Gaza Strip via a Netzarim checkpoint to travel to Qatar for medical treatment. “If I were Hamas, I would not have gone out of the Gaza Strip for treatment,” he said.
To continue documenting the changes in Al-Shati Refugee Camp brought about by the war, Bellingcat used drone images provided by Forbidden Stories to create a 3D model of the current state of the area through photogrammetry, a technique that reconstructs objects in 3D by analysing the parallax between multiple photos.
Forbidden Stories also provided drone images of Jabalia, previously one of the most inaccessible areas in Gaza for journalists, which Bellingcat used to create an additional 3D model.
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Photogrammetry
Photogrammetry is the science of extracting measurements from photographs. In this case, photogrammetry is employed to extract large scale, measured 3D models from a dataset of aerial photographs of Gaza captured by a drone.
Bellingcat processed the 3D models of Jabalia Refugee Camp and Al-Shati Refugee Camp using Agisoft Metashape, which requires a paid license. Alternative open-source programs for photogrammetry include Meshroom and COLMAP.
The 3D models were created from the drone photos in four steps, though different steps may be applicable to different scenarios. First, corresponding features are detected and matched between images. Then, using the corresponding features, camera positions are triangulated using the camera parameters (ie. focal length, pixel size, lens distortion) and repeatedly adjusted to increase the accuracy of the reconstructed camera positions through bundle block adjustment. Next, depth maps are created for each image using dense stereo matching, which compares images from similar viewpoints to find the small differences between them caused by parallax. These depth maps are used to create a 3D mesh that serves as an accurate recreation of Gaza. Finally, a texture is created by projecting the original drone photos onto the mesh in a way that seamlessly blends them, giving the final result of a photorealistic and dimensionally accurate 3D model.
Photogrammetry is used to create a photorealistic and dimensionally accurate 3D model. Credit: Agisoft Metashape. Annotated by Thomas Bordeaux.
Photogrammetry and the 3D models do have some shortcomings – in particular, areas not visible to the camera cannot be accurately reconstructed, such as the insides of heavily damaged buildings that are hidden by overhanging floor slabs. Further, the varying distance between the camera and the features it captures leads to variances in the level of detail in the model, as does the varying number of photographs of any given feature – for example the narrow alleys in Al-Shati Refugee Camp can only be seen from certain angles in the photogrammetry, meaning they aren’t as accurately depicted as more visible areas such as the courtyards of UNRWA schools in Jabalia Refugee Camp.
While satellite images can be difficult to interpret and are limited in resolution, the 3D models produced with photogrammetry allow viewers to place themselves in the environment. This approach provides an unparalleled look at the landscape of Gaza after nearly eighteen months of war, including buildings reduced to rubble, craters left behind by intense bombing, and thousands of tents sheltering displaced persons. A similar technique has been used in other open source investigations, notably in the recreation of the Mariupol Drama Theatre in Ukraine which was used as a civilian shelter until it was bombed by Russian forces in 2022, as well as numerous investigations by Forensic Architecture.
Within the models presented on this page, we have identified key sites including schools, homes and areas damaged by fighting.
Mustapha Thuraya: Documenting Al-Nasr Village/Moraj
About a month before Al-Hajj was injured in Al-Shati Refugee Camp, Mustapha Thuraya and his colleague Hamza Al-Dahdouh were killed in an IDF strike while they were driving in southern Gaza on their way back from reporting in Al-Nasr Village. Thuraya was a freelance video journalist who had filmed for Al Jazeera, AFP, Reuters, and Getty Images among others. He was killed on January 7, 2024 in Al-Nasr Village northeast of Rafah, shortly after filming with his drone.
According to reporting by the Washington Post, Thuraya and Al-Dahdouh arrived at the location about 10:30am, when an airstrike forced them to leave the area by car. They were following an ambulance when they were struck while on the road at approximately 11:10am.
Thuraya began actively covering the war not long after it started, sharing dozens of videos on his social media pages. In many of the videos, his drone controls are visible in his hands as he filmed himself in front of scenes of destruction. In some of the videos he can be seen wearing a press vest, though it is unclear if he was wearing it on the day he was hit.
The final thing Thuraya filmed with his drone was the site of an IDF airstrike in southern Gaza that took place the same day. The area he was filming is a rural part of southern Gaza that sits between Khan Yunis to the north and Rafah to the south. Overall, the area was relatively untouched by Israeli ground operations, though satellite imagery shows that the IDF cleared a small area of greenhouses within 1km of the airstrike location in late July and August 2024. Recent Planet Labs imagery from January 2025 shows that most of the larger area is still intact, including the majority of the greenhouses.
Before and after satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows the location where Mustafa Thuraya and his colleagues were filming shortly before they left in their vehicle and were killed while on the road south. The most recent imagery shows that some greenhouses have been destroyed but otherwise the area is largely unchanged. Credit: Planet Labs PBC.
The IDF initially claimed the January 7 strike on Thuraya and Al-Dahdouh’s car was in response to drone activity that posed a threat to IDF troops. They later released further reasoning for the strike, stating that Israel’s military intelligence department had confirmed that Dahdouh was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Thuraya was a member of Hamas, — something rejected by both Al Jazeera, which they were working for at the time — and the journalists’ families.
The Washington Post, quoting Thuraya’s friend and fellow journalist Shadi al-Tabatiby, said Thuraya had previously worked for around five years as a photographer for the Ministry of Religious Endowments, part of Gaza’s Hamas-led government. It’s not clear when his employment ended.
Our analysis found the closest potential IDF activity to where the strike on Thuraya’s vehicle took place — clearing activity that was visible near a cluster of buildings — was more than 5km away, something that’s visible in Planet SkySat imagery from the day of the strike. An analysis from The Washington Post came to a similar conclusion regarding the IDF presence near where Thuraya was filming, even though they analysed a smaller area, finding no evidence of IDF military activity or deployments within 2km of the site.
The Washington Post was also able to review the drone footage filmed by Thuraya and found that no IDF “soldiers, aircraft or other military equipment” was visible in the footage.
The IDF did not respond to the consortium’s specific questions about Thuraya and the circumstances surrounding his killing.
While the area in southern Gaza that Thuraya was filming before he was killed has remained mostly unchanged, Rafah — where he and Al-Dahdouh were returning to following the filming — has been decimated.
Drone imagery is still dangerous to capture in the south, even during the ceasefire. AFP published drone footage shortly after the first phase of the ceasefire was agreed, but it only covered a small area in Rafah. High resolution satellite imagery remains one of our best ways to observe the mass destruction in Rafah. Bellingcat covered this in August last year, but since then more buildings have been destroyed with entire neighborhoods that were previously standing demolished, particularly near the border areas.
Hundreds of buildings in both the central Rafah area near the large marketplace and the Al-Ganinam neighbourhood have been demolished. The few remaining buildings in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood we examined in the August investigation have also been razed to the ground.
Bellingcat is sharing the same satellite imagery analyzed in last year’s piece alongside more recent Planet imagery captured after the ceasefire on January 30 2025.
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Credit: Planet Labs PBC.
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Other Drone Journalists Slain and Photogrammetry of Jabalia
Prior to the ceasefire the Committee to Protect Journalists identified at least three other drone journalists who were killed in IDF strikes, but we have not been able to find further open source details on circumstances around their deaths.
One area that was difficult to film prior to the recent ceasefire because it was too dangerous was the Jabalia Refugee Camp and its surrounding area. This was one of the worst affected areas of Gaza, which Bellingcat documented earlier this year.
Bellingcat was able to create a photogrammetry model of one of the worst hit areas in Jabalia Refugee Camp using drone footage provided by Forbidden Stories which was captured during the recent ceasefire.
Ongoing Risks to Palestinian Journalists in Gaza
On Saturday, March 15, two IDF air strikes in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahia killed at least seven people, including Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos also known as Mahmoud Al-Basos, a drone journalist who previously provided work to Reuters and the Turkish news agency Anadolu
Among the dead were aid workers and cameramen on a mission for the London-based Al-Khair Foundation who said they were filming preparations of a Ramadan iftar meal and documenting site preparation for the extension of the camp.
“We were deeply saddened to learn that journalist Mahmoud Al-Basos, whose work Reuters published in the past few weeks, was killed in Gaza by an Israeli strike while on a mission for the Al-Khair Foundation. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time,” a Reuters spokesperson told us.
Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos was previously hired by Forbidden Stories to film drone footage for this project during the recent ceasefire. This initiative aimed to continue the work of drone journalists who had been killed while documenting the war and help readers visualise the unprecedented scale of destruction through detailed 3D aerial maps.
The IDF stated the March 15 strikes targeted “terrorists,” including two operating a drone, and released a list of names and photos. The IDF statement contained misidentifications and names of individuals the media office in Gaza said had not been killed, causing confusion.
Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos was neither named nor pictured in the list published by the IDF. Instead, the IDF listed another individual, with a similar name, describing him as a “Hamas terrorist operating under journalistic cover,” and said there was a link between the drone used in Beit Lahia and Islamic Jihad.
However, the consortium’s investigations indicate the individual named by the IDF has no direct link to Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos, and was not killed in the strike.
Al-Khair Foundation said, meanwhile, they “utterly refute” any claims that their team were connected to militants. They say that the members were deliberately targeted while on a “purely humanitarian mission.”
We geolocated the two strikes in Beit Lahia, and according to our findings, the first was approximately 2km from the Israeli border and an IDF outpost situated nearby and the second approximately 3km away, raising questions about the threat described by the IDF.
Asked twice by the consortium to provide evidence to support the different accusations, the IDF refused, stating it “will not elaborate on the published statements”.
The Committee to Protect Journalists have added Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos to their list of slain journalists.
Different Takes on Drones and IDF Response
Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Maurice Hirsch, who served for 19 years in the Israeli army’s legal corps, told our partners at Paper Trail Media there is an inherent risk in flying a drone during a conflict in proximity to fighting forces.
He said if a soldier spotted a drone in a combat zone near fighting forces, “I certainly wouldn’t assume any wrongdoing if that drone and its operators were targeted (…) it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume they were part of an enemy force.”
Our partners at Forbidden Stories also spoke to IDF reservist Michael Ofer-Ziv who served during the recent conflict, including for the first two months of the war in the Israeli military centre of Sde Teiman where he spent his time observing black-and-white footage filmed from Gaza. His role was to verify that the IDF wasn’t firing on its own soldiers. Ofer-Ziv completed his tour in December and has refused to return to service, signing a letter stating that he is no longer willing to participate in the war.
“At no point during this war did I receive an official document outlining the rules of engagement. And that’s a problem, because it leaves a lot of room for interpretation,” he said.
He didn’t know of the Gazan drone journalists we investigated but said there was an “understanding and a general vibe in the war room” that “if you see anyone piloting a drone, and that drone is not ours, you shoot the drone and the person who uses it, no questions asked.”
Asked about journalists using drones he told Forbidden Stories: “We never spoke of it.”
We contacted the IDF as part of the investigative consortium and asked whether they had a specific policy for dealing with drones in Gaza, and if so how they distinguished civilians from military targets. We asked about the individual cases listed above but were not provided any further details. The IDF has previously claimed that Thuraya was a member of Hamas, a claim which Al Jazeera and his family deny, and stated they hit a “terrorist cell” target in the IDF strike that injured Al-Hajj. Al-Hajj says this a “false and unfounded” charge.
The IDF did not answer specific questions about individual cases, nor did they provide further details or evidence about the incidents outlined above, but they told us the IDF rejects outright the allegation of systemic attack on journalists.
“The IDF cannot address operational directives and regulations as they are classified. However, every operational action or strike is mandated by IDF directives, which instruct commanders to apply the basic rules of the law of armed conflict (LOAC).”
They reiterated that the IDF is committed to principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions and that the IDF only strikes members of organised armed groups and individuals directly participating in hostilities. They told us some of the people listed by Forbidden Stories were members of Hamas’ military wing and were therefore lawful targets under international law, but they did not provide evidence to support this.
They also told us that “the IDF takes all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians, including journalists. Regarding objects, the IDF only strikes military objects. The IDF does not deliberately strike civilian objects, including those affiliated with media outlets or belonging to journalists, provided that they are not legitimate military targets.”
In their reply, they stated “the incidents have been referred to relevant mechanisms for further investigation.” But did not confirm whether the specific cases highlighted here are being investigated, and did not specify which incidents they were referring to. They also stated that exceptional incidents are subject to lessons-learned processes and are thoroughly examined and addressed accordingly by the appropriate enforcement mechanisms, and may lead the relevant cases to command, disciplinary, or criminal measures.
Press Freedom Experts
The Committee to Protect Journalists told us that drone use for journalism is still a relatively new trend.
“We encourage journalists generally to do their own risk assessments depending on their own situation on a case by case basis,” Doja Daoud, CPJ’s Levant Program Coordinator, told us.
She made clear that: “A journalist shouldn’t be killed and should be protected under international law.”
Daoud said CPJ had documented cases where drone journalists were killed. And in at least one case, a journalist had told them his drone had been disabled or controlled remotely.
“So there are other ways to deal with a drone, even in conflict areas or in a proximity of Israeli soldiers, without killing a journalist.”
As for IDF claims about journalists being combatants, Daoud said in many cases, including that of Mustapha Thuraya, CPJ is still yet to see any clear proof.
“Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing any credible evidence. And to date CPJ has documented multiple cases with no evidence at all that any journalist was engaged in militant activity.”
“Attempts to smear, delegitimise, and criminalise journalists who are doing their job are outrageous and irresponsible as they put journalists at further risk. And targeting journalists with disinformation endangers them more.”
Irene Khan, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion told us that with no western reporters allowed in, local Palestinian journalists, “are putting their lives on the line so that we may be better informed on what is happening and so that the atrocities being performed there can be exposed.”
Using drones to show what’s happening has only increased that risk, with Khan adding that since using commercial drones as a tool is still relatively new — for both journalists and combatants — and the rules are less clear.
“International humanitarian law does not say that you are not allowed to use drones, because it is a civilian object and there are many civilian objects that can be converted and used for military purposes. But it is not wrong as a civilian to use it.”
But, Khan says, the onus is on the combatants — the IDF and armed groups in Gaza — to ensure civilians are not being targeted if it’s difficult to distinguish the purpose of a drone. From a legal point of view, international humanitarian law heavily favours journalists.
“So the onus is actually on the combatants to make sure that if we cannot distinguish, then we need to do more to ascertain whether we might, by mistake, kill a civilian, we might kill a journalist.”
“And in all those areas, I think the standards that the IDF seem to be applying are lower than what I would call due diligence. I think there has been a tendency on the side of the IDF to assume that some of these journalists have links with Hamas and therefore are legitimate targets.”
With such a high journalist death toll throughout the war, Khan says there needs to be more done to protect journalists in the future — including carrying out independent investigations.
“I come back to the issue of impunity. It has to be addressed. So every time a journalist is killed, there should be a full investigation as to what happened and to make sure that if there was a mistake made, what are they doing correcting those mistakes? … And I don’t understand if the IDF is so sure that they didn’t make a mistake, why are they not allowing others to come in and investigate it?”
In one of the cases where the IDF completed an investigation into one of its strikes on civilians, they said its strikes on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy last year was the result of aid workers being misidentified as gunmen. A major and colonel were dismissed and a brigade commander was formally reprimanded.
Some Palestinian journalists are continuing to film with mobile phones, cameras and drones, despite the risks.
With the recent ceasefire collapse, the risk to journalists operating on the ground is likely to increase again, heavily restricting our view of the impact of the conflict on Palestinian communities in the Gaza strip.
Youssr Youssef, Magdalena Hervada, Charlotte Maher and Logan Williams contributed to this report.
Sadly most people are incredibly uninformed, plenty of his supporter and dem voter knew, but majority of american probably had no idea and right now don't know whats really happening. They'll figure it out too late.
While I have a very low opinion on the American electorate I still find such a situation hard to imagine since deep political analysis skills isn't really required especially when dealing with Trump. Its just the bare basic of their political scene. Like, I can get US voters not getting the Orban reference specifically but in general Republicans wear their bad intentions on their sleeve. Just putting on the TV exactly once should already be enough to notice certain things.