Israel airstrikes kill 31 journalists in Yemen, the West looks away

Alain Marshal
Medium.com
Tue, 16 Sep 2025 21:56 UTC

© Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images

Only the persistence of a racism so deeply entrenched it seems written into our DNA, combined with the total dominance of Zionist narratives among our politicians, media, and public figures, can explain not only the lack of reaction, but even the absence of any mention of the fact that on September 10, Israel deliberately bombed the offices of two newspapers in Sanaa, assassinating 31 journalists.

On September 10, 2025, another Israeli attack on Yemen's civilian infrastructure struck several sites in the capital, Sanaa, including the offices of the newspapers September 26 and Al-Yaman. The toll was devastating: at least 50 people, among them 31 journalists, were killed, and more than 165 others wounded. And yet, this major war crime has been met with total silence in the West — just as the unprecedented assassination of half of Yemen's government 14 days earlier.

This denial recalls the infamous statement by the French genocidal gutter philosopher Raphaël Enthoven ("There are NO journalists in Gaza. Only killers, combatants, or hostage-takers with press cards."). Far from being an exception, he was simply saying aloud what many analysts and commentators whisper in private. The muted, permissive, and even encouraging reaction to the unprecedented massacre of journalists in Gaza — just like the reaction to the first genocide in history openly acknowledged by its perpetrators and broadcast live day after day — makes this abundantly clear. For our "beautiful Western souls," there are no "journalists" in Yemen, only "Houthi rebels," just as in Gaza there are no "civilians," only (actual or potential) "Hamas members."

Today, all those who have failed to report on and condemn this flagrant war crime — all those who, like Mediapart (hiding behind AFP), Libération, TV5 Monde, La Croix or Le Figaro, referred only to "Houthi sites," "military targets," or "buildings used by Houthi armed forces," thus validating Israeli propaganda for 48 hours after the fact, even though the truth was known as early as the 10th — must themselves be regarded as active or passive accomplices, if not outright apologists, for Israeli crimes. All the more so since, even though September 26 is a publication of the Ministry of Defense, it employs civilian journalists, and the editorial offices of the two targeted newspapers were located in residential areas, with women and children among the victims.

Here is the statement issued by the Yemeni Journalists' Union on September 11:

"The Yemeni Journalists' Union strongly condemns the heinous war crime committed by Israel's brutal aggression on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, which directly targeted the offices of the newspapers September 26 and Al-Yemen in the capital, Sanaa. This attack resulted in the killing and wounding of several of our fellow journalists and media professionals, along with dozens of victims among the residents of the surrounding neighborhood.

According to initial reports, 35 people were killed and more than 131 injured, most of them defenseless civilians, in a crime that is a disgrace to humanity and adds to the long list of Israeli crimes against journalists and civilians.

Within the Yemeni Journalists' Union, while reiterating our condemnation of this despicable massacre, we:

• Express our full solidarity with the families of the martyrs and the wounded, as well as with the Yemeni journalistic and media community, which is systematically targeted by Israeli aggression.
• Reaffirm our firm and unwavering stance in support of the Palestinian people in Gaza, who are facing a genocidal war waged by the Zionist death machine.
• Call on the international community, as well as humanitarian and human rights organizations, to take urgent action to condemn this crime, bring its perpetrators to justice, and end the policy of impunity granted to the Israeli occupation.
• Urge all Arab and international journalists' unions and associations — foremost among them the Arab Journalists' Union and the International Federation of Journalists — to raise their voices and stand in solidarity with Yemeni and Palestinian journalists systematically targeted by the Israeli enemy.

In conclusion, the Yemeni Journalists' Union affirms that attacks on freedom of expression and national journalism will only strengthen journalists' determination to expose Israeli crimes and to convey the truth, in defense of our peoples' right to freedom, dignity, and sovereignty."

Despite this, on September 12, Le Monde referred to "'martyrs, wounded, and several houses damaged in the Israeli attack on the headquarters of Moral Orientation', the name given to the communications services of the rebel forces in the capital," while Challenges described the strike's target as the "headquarters of the Houthi army's 'propaganda'," openly endorsing the conflation of journalists with soldiers. Will the same logic apply if, one day, a foreign power strikes the offices of public television, radio, and/or newspapers in France or elsewhere — or even private media outlets that merely relay Macronist/governmental, Atlanticist, and/or Zionist propaganda? Do these so-called "journalists" realize they are redefining themselves as legitimate targets?

For its part, Human Rights Watch managed the feat of publishing, in the immediate aftermath of this unprecedented attack, an article condemning the Houthis for their alleged crimes against journalists — without the slightest mention of the Israeli assault. Unsurprisingly, Reporters Without Borders is nowhere to be found. A shipwreck with no return, indeed a first-class burial of every principle of ethics and dignity.

© Alain Marshal/X

HRW finally published a report, mostly whitewashing Israel

It has long been demonstrated — notably by Noam Chomsky — that the slogan "I am Charlie," brandished as a defense of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, was nothing but a monumental fraud. Our media have always, if not applauded, then at least discreetly ignored the targeting of journalists when carried out by the United States or its allies. The Israeli strikes on Iranian state television last June only confirmed this ignominious pattern, in which not only corporatism, but even international humanitarian law, gives way to the tacit (yet inescapable) imperative of loyalty to Washington and Tel Aviv.

Until now, the largest massacre of journalists had been the Ampatuan (or Maguindanao) massacre in the Philippines in 2009: 58 people, including 34 journalists, were murdered by a militia linked to a local political clan to block an electoral candidacy, a reflection of clan brutality and the impunity prevailing in a peripheral region of the archipelago. By contrast, the Sanaa massacre — which claimed a comparable number of journalist victims — was not the work of an isolated gang but of the Israeli state itself. It struck the internationally recognized capital of Yemen, with the complicity and even the backing of Western powers and their media echo chambers.

© Ramon F Velasquez/Wikipedia

Monument to the journalists murdered in the Ampatuan massacre in the Philippines, November 2009.
National Press Club of the Philippines

Moreover, Yemeni journalists were targeted solely because they were journalists, within the premises of their own news organizations, in the very exercise of their duties. Finally, this attack hit a country that has been one of the most steadfast supporters of the people of Gaza, taking more seriously than anyone else its obligation to prevent the crime of genocide. This means that the scale of the crime, its political significance, and the international complicity that surrounds it make it an even graver event than the Philippine massacre. But the racist, Atlanticist, and Zionist stranglehold weighing down upon our societies, our newsrooms, and our intelligentsia smothers this major crime, ensuring it leaves no trace in what we persist in calling "the civilized West," where only the law of the jungle, money, and silence reign, stripping it even of existence itself, of any reality. This is no longer mere negationism, for it is not a matter of disputing the magnitude or the designation of a fact, but of casting it into nothingness. It is a purely Orwellian dystopia:

If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture or death. [...] The lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. [...] 'Reality control,' they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'." (George Orwell, 1984).

We pay tribute to the martyrs of press freedom (who are also martyrs in the defense of the rights of the Palestinian people and their fundamental right to existence, self-determination, and dignity) murdered in Yemen. Below we reproduce their names and photographs (30 men and 1 woman), together with a translation of the statement issued on September 14 by journalists from the targeted newspapers, September 26 and Al-Yaman, condemning the attack and honoring their martyred colleagues:

Martyrs of Press Freedom and of the Palestinian People's Right to Existence, Freedom, and Dignity
Note: there are 31 names and 32 portraits, one of which is that of a child — the son of one of the murdered journalists. The female victim is represented only by a silhouette, in keeping with Yemeni traditions of modesty — a tradition which, far from being respected, will only fuel the racist contempt and colonial arrogance of a West that continues to view Arab-Muslim peoples as inferior, as nothing more than 'human animals' impervious to the so-called 'lights' of civilization.

The editorial staffs of the newspapers September 26 and Al-Yaman pay tribute to the 31 journalists martyred during the Israeli assault that struck their headquarters in the capital Sanaa, reducing it to rubble. The attack killed a number of journalists and wounded 22 others, in addition to leaving dozens of civilian casualties, both dead and injured.

We express our strongest condemnation of this heinous crime. The Israeli enemy's deliberate targeting of media outlets and information professionals is proof of its failure, and of its desperate and brazen attempts to silence the voice of truth and stifle all voices that denounce its crimes and expose the true face of this usurping and criminal entity.

This abominable act is part of a long series of atrocities perpetrated by the Zionist entity in its ongoing campaign against journalists and media professionals who have revealed to the world the reality of its crimes, its barbarism, its killings, its sieges, its destruction, and its attacks on every foundation of life in Gaza and Palestine.

The Zionist war machine cannot silence the voice of truth, no matter how much journalists' blood it spills. Journalists remain steadfast in their mission to report reality and to expose the crimes committed by Zionism in the Gaza Strip for nearly two years.

The blood of Yemeni journalists has now mingled with that of their colleagues in Gaza, deliberately targeted by the enemy's criminal bombardments, in an attempt to extinguish the voice of truth and to conceal the ongoing crime of extermination against the enclave's population.

We call upon the United Nations, the Security Council, all humanitarian and human rights organizations, as well as journalists' unions and media associations, to condemn this aggression and this monstrous crime against the press.

The Zionist enemy and its Nazi leadership bear full humanitarian, legal, and historical responsibility for this crime and for all other crimes against the media and the press, as well as for those committed against our brothers in Palestine. Sooner or later, they will pay the price.

We extend our heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones of the martyrs, praying to Almighty God to grant them patience and solace.

Names of the Martyred Journalists:

1. Abdelaziz Yahya Yahya Sheikh

2. Youssef Ali Yahya Shamsuddin

3. Ali Naji Saeed Al-Sharaei

4. Sami Mohammed Hussein Al-Zaydi

5. Mohammed Ismail Hazaam Al-Omeisi

6. Murad Mohammed Ali Al-Faqih

7. Ali Mohammed Ahmed Al-Faqih

8. Abdelqawi Mohammed Saleh Al-Asfour

9. Bashir Hussein Ahsan Dablane

10. Aref Ali Abdo Al-Samhi

11. Mohamed Hamoud Ahmed Al-Matri

12. Abdelouali Abdo Hussein Al-Najjar

13. Abdo Taher Mousleh Al-Saadi

14. Abdelaziz Saleh Ahmed Shas

15. Abdallah Mohammed Abdo Al-Harazi

16. Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Al-Zaakri

17. Zouhair Ahmed Mohammed Al-Zaakri

18. Mohamed Abdo Yahya Al-Sanfi

19. Mohamed Al-Azi Ghalib Al-Harazi

20. Jamal Faras Ali Al-Aadi

21. Essam Ahmed Murshid Al-Hashdi and his son Abdelouli Essam (child portrait)

22. Salim Abdallah Abdo Ahmed Al-Wotiri

23. Abbas Abdelmalik Mohammed Al-Dailmi

24. Lutf Ahmed Nasser Hadian

25. Qais Abdo Ahmed Al-Naqib

26. Mohamed Ali Hamoud Al-Dhawi

27. Fares Abdallah Ali Al-Ramisa

28. Abderrahman Mohammed Mohammed Jaaman

29. Ali Mohammed Ali Al-Aqil

30. Amal Mohammed Ghalib Al-Manakhi (female martyr)

31. Abdallah Mahdi Abdallah Al-Bahri