28 October 2026
Israel has been inflicting a genocide on the Palestinians of Gaza and doesn’t want you to see it. It has therefore barred access to Gaza to foreign journalists and systematically assassinated Palestinian journalists. As of this month, it has killed 263 Palestinian journalists which, according to Al Jazeera, is more than all journalists killed in all wars in the last hundred years. Despite Israel’s best efforts, we still have access to startlingly vivid images of reality in both Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, thanks not least to the dedicated professionals of Activestills, a photo-journalist cooperative formed in 2005 with the aim of exposing Israel’s systematic aggression. As the cooperative explains,
“Activestills approaches the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as one, working to expose the most blatant attack on human rights and freedom within these borders: the Zionist settler-colonial project led by Israel against the Palestinian population. One of our main topics of documentation is the various forms of resistance against the colonial project, on both sides of the Green Line.
The collective believes in the power of images to shape public attitudes and raise awareness on issues that are generally absent from public discourse, or presented in a misleading way by the media. The international mainstream media often repeats the Israeli narrative, failing to expose the settler-colonial project as the main cause of violence and human rights violations in the area. We wish to challenge this state of affairs by producing work which supports the efforts of the oppressed in bringing their narrative into the visible public sphere.“
Activestills has kindly granted BRICUP access to its archive of nearly 70,000 images, and BRICUP is pleased to publicise Activestills’ fund-raising campaign to enable its photo-journalists to renew or replace cameras and equipment. Their work is vital for our work as well. Please consider contributing to their campaign.
Cover photo by Yahel Gazit, courtesy Activestills
