Since the outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023, the Benjamin Netanyahu government has barred foreign journalists from freely entering and independently operating in the Gaza Strip. The Foreign Press Association in Israel (FPA) – representing some 350 members from around 130 international media outlets in 30 countries – has spent more than two years attempting, unsuccessfully so far, to have the ban overturned by Israel’s High Court of Justice.The judges rejected the first petition in January 2024, adopting the government’s position that significant security risks outweighed press freedom. Proceedings on a second petition, filed in September 2024, were dragged out by the court, as the judges repeatedly granted the government extensions to formulate its response. Eventually, on January 5, 2026, the government merely reiterated – tersely – its claim of security risks.The government’s lack of effort in substantiating its arguments suggests that it expects the judges to reject the petition. But even if the court ultimately accepts it and lifts the ban, enormous damage has already been done to journalistic coverage of the war. Either way, the claims advanced in the FPA’s second petition indicate that foreign journalists are searching, at the High Court, for an Israel that does not exist.Among other things, the petition argues that “a democratic state cannot deny journalistic coverage”; that safeguarding freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and the public’s right to know is essential to “preserving the character of the State of Israel as a democratic state, both inwardly – toward Israeli society – and outwardly – toward the entire world”; and that the media’s right to access and freedom of movement are protected in a “democratic and liberal state.”But the State of Israel is not a liberal democracy. Within its sovereign territory, it is governed by an authoritarian regime, while simultaneously ruling Palestinians in the occupied territories through a military regime operating according to the rules of apartheid.The High Court to which foreign journalists have appealed, seeking to exercise freedom of movement and press freedom in Gaza, has for more than two years enabled the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes.This is true in Israel’s prisons – where the judges permitted the denial of Red Cross visits, rejected habeas corpus petitions, allowed the concealment of the full identities of detainees from Gaza held by Israel, and allowed government policies that led to starvation, disease outbreaks, and the torture of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, resulting in dozens of deaths and irreversible physical harm to many others.It is true in the Gaza Strip – where the court rejected petitions against starvation policies and lethal restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid, as well as against attacks on hospitals. And it is true in the West Bank – where the judges refrained from providing any effective remedy to petitions against policies of ethnic cleansing targeting Palestinian communities.In addition, the second petition advances numerous claims regarding changes in the security situation in Gaza since the first ruling, as well as arguments about the benefits of free and independent journalistic coverage – including for Israel itself. Among other things, it is argued that such coverage would help preserve Israel’s image and prevent it from appearing as though it has something to hide, and might even enhance its security by exposing failures among decision-makers and security agencies, thereby enabling their correction.The petition even claims that while media coverage can serve as an “amplifier” for the “theatre of terror,” it is also what makes it possible to mobilise domestic and international support for an “uncompromising fight against its perpetrators.”These efforts at persuasion are unnecessary, because the State of Israel does have something to hide.From the outset, the ban on free journalistic work was designed to achieve a central objective: it allowed the Netanyahu government – and the Western governments that supported it during the war – to maintain a “space for denial” regarding the crimes and atrocities committed in Gaza, on the grounds that international journalists were not present on the ground and therefore relied on Palestinian sources from afar, without the ability to conduct full, independent verification of the information they received.This is how we arrived at a situation in which many international newspapers and news channels routinely ran disclaimers stating that reports and testimonies could not be independently verified – a structural feature that undermined the credibility of the reporting in the eyes of readers and viewers. How convenient for the Netanyahu government and its supporters around the world.This is not merely a theoretical debate. Many civilians in Gaza paid with their lives and bodies for this “space for denial,” which enabled the continuation of the war and the repetition of crimes.Presumably, if the judges of Israel’s High Court truly upheld press freedom, they would not have rejected the FPA’s first petition or dragged out consideration of the second. The very decision to petition the High Court twice reflects a failure to understand – or a denial – of the grim reality in Israel and the occupied territories.One can easily think of countries with authoritarian regimes similar to the one in place in Israel where foreign journalists would never consider petitioning the local supreme court – both to avoid wasting time and to preserve their independence by not lending legitimacy to the system.The lesson of this episode should be that the time has come for the entire international media to cover Israel exactly as it is – especially at a moment when an Israeli government is gravely undermining press freedom and working to censor it, while also pursuing a lethal policy of starvation, killing, and the flattening of the Gaza Strip, a policy that has led to the deaths of more than 200 journalists and photojournalists.Eitay Mack is a human rights lawyer and activist based in Jerusalem.