Journalism Is Not a Crime  is a historic volume honoring the Palestinian journalists who documented the destruction of Gaza while living through it themselves. Spanning from October 7, 2023 through the end of 2025, the book brings together 160 photographs and 30 Instagram posts in a chronological visual testimony of war, survival, witness, and loss.

As international media coverage was banned, many Palestinian journalists and photojournalists turned to Instagram as a direct channel to publish images from Gaza in real time, often posting dozens of photographs and videos each day. Their accounts became an uncensored visual record of the war: scenes of destruction, displacement, mourning, survival, and daily life under bombardment. Alongside the violence they witnessed, many also shared fragments of their personal lives, fears, losses, and hopes that the world would continue to see and remember Gaza.

The book draws from these social media archives to preserve not only the images themselves, but the immediacy and humanity with which they were shared.

Sixty living photojournalists and journalists are represented through photographs and personal reflections, while twenties deceased journalists are commemorated through their images, final messages, wills, and private social media posts, fragments of lives interrupted while reporting from the front lines of history.

The cover features an original calligraphic artwork by Palestinian photojournalist and artist Belal Khaled, created exclusively for the publication.

To create this unprecedented collection, the editorial team, Sarah Leen, Photo Editor; Aruallan, Photo Researcher & Curator  and Svetlana Bachevanova, Concept Director reviewed more than 57,000 Instagram posts from  journalists working in Gaza during the war. The result is an intimate and devastating portrait of journalism under siege, where the act of documenting became inseparable from survival itself.

Published in English and Arabic and designed by Melike Taşçıoğlu, this publication is conceived as a permanent record of courage, testimony, and resistance against the erasure of journalists and their work. More than a photography book, it stands as a living archive of those who risked  and in many cases gave  their lives so the world could see.

A free PDF edition will be made publicly available.
The hardcover edition helps preserve this archive in permanent physical form.

Journalists in the book: Abdallah Al-Attarr, Abdelhakeem Abu Riash, Abed Zagout, Ahmad Hasaballah, Ahmed Al-Louh, Ahmed Hijazi, Ahmed Mansour, Ahmed Sukkar, Ahmed Zaqout, Ali Jadallah, Amr Tabash, Anas Jamal Al-Sharif, Ayman Al-Gedi, Bashar Taleb, Belal Khaled, Dawood Aboulkas, Doaa Mohammad Al-Baz, Eyad Baba, Fadi Al-Wahidi, Fatima Hassona, Haitham Imad, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, Hassan Aslih, Hassouneh Salim, Hossam El-Masri, Hossam Shabbat, Ibrahim Abu Mustafa, Ibrahim Zaher, Ismail Abu Dayyeh, Ismail Abu Hatab, Ismail Al-Ghoul, Issa Abu Saada, Jehad Al-Shrafi, Khames Alrefi, Loay Ayyoub, Mahmoud Abu Hamda, Mahmoud Bassam, Mahmoud Issa, Mahmud Hams, Majdi Fathi, Mariam Abu Dagga, Moamen Abu Al-Awf, Moamen Aliwa, Moaz Abu Taha, Mohamed Abu Hatab, Mohammed Al-Aloul, Mohammed Daher, Mohammed Dahman, Mohammed Mansour, Mohammed Masri, Mohammed Noufal, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Mohammed Salama, Mohammed Salem, Mohammed Zaanoun, Momin Faiz, Momen Sameer, Montaser Al-Sawaf, Motasem Mortaja, Mustafa Hassona, Mustafa Thuraya, Omar Al-Dirawi, Omar Ashtawy, Omar El-Qattaa, Ramez Haboob, Roshdi Sarraj, Saadi Modukh, Saber Nuraldin, Saed Abu Nabhan, Saher Alghorra, Said M. Jaras, Sameh Rahmi, Samer Abu Dagga, Sari Mansour, Suhail Nassar, Yahya Barzeq, Yasser Qudaih, Yousef Al-Zanoun, Yousef Massoud.