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Since the start of the war with Iran, the Israeli military has imposed strict censorship regulations on local and international media outlets operating inside the country, severely impeding journalists’ ability to cover the situation on the ground.
Reporters and networks are prohibited from publishing the precise location of Iranian missile impacts, or even filming or photographing the extent of the damage in a way that could give away the location — restrictions designed, in the words of the army’s chief censor Col. Netanel Kula, “to prevent assistance to the enemy during wartime.”
Outside of wartime, Israeli law already gives the military censor the authority to prevent certain information from being published, even retroactively. This can include aspects of Israel’s arms deals or intelligence activities, among other security-related topics.
But just as it did during the “12-Day War” last June, the censor has tightened its restrictions amid the current U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. The police have already detained several journalists it deemed to be violating these censorship regulations.
In an unclassified document published on March 5, Kula instructed journalists to submit anything related to the following topics to the censor for review prior to publication: operational matters, intelligence, defensive preparedness, impact sites in Israel, armament management (including munitions and interceptor stockpiles, aircraft and air defense systems readiness, and the employment and use of unique and classified weaponry), and operational vulnerabilities in defense and offense.
“Consideration must also be given to the publication of visual materials, such as photographs and videos, which must also be submitted for prior review,” Kula added.
These restrictions have created some absurd situations for journalists. In one case known to +972 Magazine, an Iranian missile hit its target while fragments struck a nearby educational facility. Yet the media was only allowed to report on the latter, without being able to even mention the former or inspect the damage.
In another case, journalists were documenting damage to a residential building when a man who likely worked for a security agency told police to instruct the journalists there not to film the actual target of the strike, which was behind them. The officer replied that the journalists would not have noticed it if they were not told, since most of the damage was to the civilian building.
Several senior staff members in international media organizations operating in Israel told +972 that the censor’s restrictions have made it difficult to maintain normal reporting routines.
One example concerns live feeds of wide shots from cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that international news agencies provide for use by broadcasters worldwide. During Iranian missile attacks, the agencies are prohibited from showing where Israeli interceptor missiles are launched from, meaning they must either cut the broadcast or tilt the camera downward toward the street so the skyline is not visible.
A senior figure at one news agency said that after cutting the live feed, they sometimes send footage of incoming missiles and interceptions to the censor for approval. The censor has barred several of these clips from publication, including a failed interception and a missile fragment continuing its trajectory.
The censor has also rejected still photographs showing interceptor launches, including long-exposure nighttime images that do not reveal precise locations.
“It’s hard to understand what is actually happening,” a senior manager at a foreign media outlet working in Israel explained. “In a lot of cases, we have official reports that there were no strikes or damage only to discover later that a target was hit. We can’t report or confirm so we don’t know if it happened or not.
“We have a partial understanding of the reality on the ground,” the senior manager admitted. “Our coverage of the war is not truthful.”
‘Masked security personnel told me what not to film’
Criticism of the tightened censorship regulations is not limited to the international media. On the evening of March 11, Hezbollah launched its most intense volley of rocket fire since the start of the Iran war; Israeli media outlets knew about this in advance, but were barred from publishing the story.
“The censor rejected information I had this evening about the possibility that Hezbollah may try to intensify its fire toward Israel,” Channel 12’s Nitzan Shapira wrote that night. “Later in the evening, the same information was published on CNN, and only then were we able to report it.
“This is exactly the problem with this conduct,” he continued. “Instead of residents of the State of Israel receiving real-time information that could help them prepare and get ready in a basic way, the information was censored, and the Israeli public finds itself once again getting updated by American media outlets. An absurd situation.”
The following morning, the IDF Spokesperson apologized, saying it was “wrong not to update the public.”
As in the previous Iran war, journalists have also been detained in the course of their work. Two journalists from CNN Türk were briefly detained while broadcasting live near the Kirya, Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv.
At one missile impact site in Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv, I saw members of the local civilian security squad — one of hundreds of armed volunteer groups that the Israeli government has established since the October 7 attacks to expand its policing effort — checking journalists’ credentials, even though police had already cleared them. “Let’s make sure there are no spies here,” the squad commander called out to his colleagues.
The commander acknowledged, however, that they have no control over ordinary citizens filming on their phones and spreading footage on social media.
At another impact site in central Israel last week, a man claiming to be a police volunteer demanded to see journalists’ press credentials. After identifying a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who works for a foreign network, he accused him — without evidence — of transmitting the locations of missile strikes.
During the war last summer, the right-wing activist known as “The Shadow” and members of his civilian security squad unlawfully detained foreign and Palestinian journalists at an impact site in Tel Aviv. Authorities later instructed them not to interfere with journalists.
“After two and a half years of war, including the war with Iran in the summer, you already have experience of what you can and can’t document, and what the censor will reject,” another journalist from an international outlet explained.
“Last summer, I published a report from an impact site but the censor called and ordered us to take it down,” the journalist continued. “So now, when I arrive at the scene of a missile impact, almost automatically I document and report only what I know is allowed.”
One morning during this war, the journalist added, “I arrived at one of the impact sites hit overnight in central Israel, and masked security personnel came and told me what not to film.”
As a result of the restrictions, journalists are having to find creative ways to get information out to the public. On the evening of March 10, Hezbollah fired two rockets into Israel; while media outlets were barred from publishing the locations of the impacts, some, including Ynet, quoted a statement by Hezbollah saying they had targeted a satellite station near Beit Shemesh, and included a video that Hezbollah shared which had been taken from social media.
Some journalists have noted, however, that the censorship seems less strict this time than during the 12-Day War last summer, and that the mood in the street is somewhat different — perhaps because the Iranian strikes have resulted in fewer Israeli casualties.
“Last year, the public mood seemed a little more hostile at one point, with right-wing activists claiming that Al Jazeera and others were broadcasting locations that they shouldn’t be,” a journalist working for an international media outlet told +972. “I remember police checking journalists’ ID cards after we filmed the aftermath of a strike because they were provoked by a right-wing activist. But I didn’t see anything like that this time.”