Freedom Index
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It has been just over a year since 31 journalists were killed by a single bomb in the Yemen capital of Sanaa. The Italian media consortium Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI) has interviewed survivors and pieced together what happened
Entry is permitted only to journalists, media personnel, witnesses, survivors, victims’ families, and officials authorised to access the site, located in the heart of Sanaa’s administrative district.
Beyond the gate lies a mountain of wild rubble. At the centre of the site stand the scant remains of the printing presses used by the weekly newspaper 26 September, alongside a banner displaying images of the victims of 10 September 2025 massacre.
Survivors find it painful to look at the wreckage. Ibrahim al-Masoudi, an illustrator and calligrapher, narrowly escaped death one year ago. He has since lost his hearing, though he retains his sight allowing him to weep for the 31 colleagues killed that afternoon by an American bomb. This weapon – a precision guided bomb with a thermal battery warhead manufactured in Missouri, the tracking of which was confirmed by our investigation for the IRPI – was dropped by the Israeli military on Sanaa, the capital of the pro-Iranian Yemeni Houthi government.
Survivors find it hard to look at the devastation in Sanaa (© Saddam Ahmed/IRPI Media)
Recent clashes between the Aden-based government – backed by the Saudi military – and the troops of Ansarullah (the name of the Yemeni Houthi party) have reignited the conflict between the region’s Sunni and Shia blocs on the Arabian Peninsula. Pro-Iranian militias in northern Yemen have also repeatedly struck Israel with missiles and drones and blocked Red Sea shipping following the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Yet, the memory of this massacre of journalists endures, standing as one of the gravest violations of press freedom in the last 20 years. This was, in fact, the single attack that has claimed the lives of the highest number of journalists since 2009 – occurring during the worst year on record for global press safety, with a death toll of 129 media workers according to the CPJ, primarily in Gaza.
On that day – a Thursday, the final workday of the week in Yemen – the bomb was dropped in the middle of the afternoon, just as people were returning from work and the weekly newspaper was being printed for its Friday release. The printing presses were running at full capacity. The son of Esam al-Hashidi, a journalist supporting a large family, had joined his father at work after leaving school.
“The son,” reports Noria al-Harazi, a journalist who survived the attack and an editor for 26 September, “had told his mother that after school he preferred to accompany his father to work to watch and learn, so that he could support the family in the future should his father grow old or die.”
Rescuers reported finding the father’s remains embracing what was left of the eleven-year-old boy. Esam’s son is one of the “collateral victims” of the massacre on 10 September 2025.
On that day alone, the Yemen Data Project recorded a high number of casualties aside from the journalists: 22 men, 11 women, and 5 children killed. One reason for this is that the newspaper compound which was targeted was located in the city centre, surrounded by a bus station, heavily crowded during rush hours.
Rescuers reported finding the father’s remains embracing what was left of the eleven-year-old boy
The compound housed the editorial offices of two state-owned Yemeni newspapers – 26 September and al-Yemen which existed long before the pro-Iranian Houthi militia seized control of state institutions in 2014. Along with the two newsrooms, their staff, and all the machinery and printing presses, Yemen’s central historical archive was also incinerated; the archive had been established alongside the 26 September newspaper, which was set up following the revolution of 26 September 1962 (hence its name), the event in which republicans overthrew the imamate that had ruled the country for centuries.
“Stored here were 36 million photographic negatives and a vast number of documents from the Ottoman era, images of tourist sites, press interviews with government officials. Everything went up in smoke, burned, vanished: nothing remains,” says Nabil Shobail, head of the archive and deputy director of the photography department.
Nabil bows in front of a series of black-and-white photographs scattered at the bottom of a pit – reached via a rough path leading into the hollow left by the bomb that destroyed the building housing the archive.
“Look, this is Marshal Abdullah al-Sallal; he was one of Yemen’s presidents following the republican revolution of September 26th, in 1962. Twelve years of war weren’t enough. Now our history has been erased, too: who will give it back to us?”
The massacre of these Yemeni journalists has garnered little international attention. There are several reasons: the difficulty the international press faced in accessing areas controlled by pro-Iranian militias; Houthi authorities’ concerns about protecting the site and the bomb evidence from potential further attacks; the dehumanisation of professionals who are allied with Iran – or who are Lebanese, Palestinian, Iraqi, Syrian, or Yemeni. Collectively, these factors have stifled efforts to determine accountability and kept details of the massacre from coming to light, within a global context where respect for international law has taken a back seat to the military objectives of the parties involved.
“Everything went up in smoke, burned, vanished: nothing remains.”
Killing journalists, unless they are directly involved in violence, is against international law, even if they are presenting the views of an armed group. But Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz justified the attack, claiming the compound housed the “Houthi propaganda apparatus” belonging to the public relations department of their party, Ansarullah.
Today from Ukraine to Sudan, from Gaza to Lebanon and Yemen, being a doctor, paramedic, or journalist offers no protection against friendly or enemy fire; instead, it makes one a target. Reiterating that journalism is never a crime has not shielded these colleagues from death.
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