The killing of seven Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza on August 10 has prompted verbal condemnations, yet has inspired little to no substantive action. This has become the predictable and horrifying trajectory of the international community's response to the ongoing Israeli genocide.

 By eliminating Palestinian journalists like Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqeh, Israel has made a sinister statement that the genocide will spare no one. According to the monitoring website Shireen.ps, Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists since October 2023.

The Ohio Coalition to End Qualified Immunity (OCTEQI) is advancing its historic citizen-led initiative to amend the Ohio State Constitution. After overcoming a prolonged series of administrative and legal battles, the campaign has now entered its critical statewide signature-gathering phase, aiming for placement on the November 3, 2026, general election ballot.​ The coalition is a unified effort of multiple civil rights and accountability organizations, led by the Heartbeat Movement Inc.​ The initiative’s Ballotpedia page can be viewed here.

The bill would specify that persons who are unlawfully present in the United States are not “privileged” from arrest. This bill has already passed the Ohio Senate (6/18/2025). It was introduced in the House (6/23/25), but has not yet been referred to a committee. More information in this OCJ article and this analysis.

What can you do now? 

An ethical journalist acts with integrity. As I sat in my first ever journalism class, staring at the sentence scrawled on the chalkboard, my heart soared with the conviction that I was entering a field defined by truth.

But just two months later, as Israeli bombs reduced the streets of Gaza to rubble, I watched Western media justify the countless Palestinian lives stolen, as though my people’s suffering was disposable. Each death fractured my heart, while media organizations played a cruel game of linguistic gymnastics to avoid recognizing the depravity of genocide. Stories were told without context, headlines stripped of humanity, and the integrity I had been promised felt like an illusion. My faith in journalism collapsed, reduced to rubble alongside the buildings of my homeland.

Now, in the first journalism class of my junior year, I find myself staring at the same words again. Only this time, it doesn’t feel inspirational, it feels empty.