UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has issued a scathing condemnation of Israel’s continued ban on international journalists entering Gaza, calling it a deliberate assault on truth and transparency amid an ongoing campaign of destruction against the Palestinian people.

In a statement posted to his official X (formerly Twitter) account, Lazzarini decried the 20-month blackout — imposed since the beginning of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza — as “unprecedented in any other conflict in modern history,” warning that the restriction serves to conceal the full scale of atrocities committed against civilians.

“This is not just a ban on media — it is a ban on the truth,” Lazzarini wrote. “It is a ban on reporting the facts.”

The absence of international media has left Gaza’s story largely in the hands of courageous Palestinian journalists, many of whom continue to report under fire, without protection, and at immense personal risk. Nearly 200 Palestinian reporters have been killed since the beginning of the war — a staggering figure that reflects not only the dangers of war but the apparent targeting of those documenting it.

Despite these unimaginable risks, Palestinian journalists have become the frontline witnesses to what many now describe as genocide — exposing mass civilian casualties, attacks on hospitals, the use of starvation as a weapon, and the erasure of entire neighborhoods.

Lazzarini warned that without independent international reporting, global understanding of the crisis is being shaped by silence and distortion: “It is the perfect recipe to fuel misinformation, deepening polarization and dehumanization.”

His call comes amid growing international outrage over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, and millions more face starvation, disease, and displacement under relentless Israeli bombardment and siege.

“The ban on international media must be lifted,” Lazzarini demanded, echoing the cries of Palestinian voices that have long been silenced or ignored on the world stage.

Rights groups and press freedom organizations have condemned Israel’s blockade on foreign media as an intentional strategy to hide war crimes and suppress international accountability. Many are now urging world governments and global institutions to treat this censorship as yet another violation of international law — and to hold Israel responsible not just for the bombs it drops, but for the truths it buries.

In Gaza, the truth is under siege — and the world must no longer look away. (ILKHA)