But the Times of Israel reporter reported that a missile hit - and where. The censor tries to prevent reports like that, for (ostensibly) security reasons - telling the enemy where their missiles hit.

Is there a trustworthy independent source? I don't trust anything coming from Iranian or Israeli news outlets.

There is a clip embedded within the article that corroborates what the journalist wrote.

I don't understand what are you saying. The journalist published an article claiming that a missile struck without being intercepted (although with no damage). The gamblers wanted the journalist to retract and say that the missile was intercepted.

Are you saying that the gamblers were actually the censors or that the reality was that the missile was indeed intercepted and somehow the censors forced the journalist to say it wasn't?

The rules don't apply for reporters outside of Israel, and this was historically been the way that Israeli journos and other bypass the censorship completely.

The author is being pressured (IMO) because the degens feel like they can threaten him (physical proximity)

I think it's the opposite - the censorship has made the Israeli public believe they're safer than they really are. The US is lying about their stockpiles and frantically moving resources from East Asia to try and shore up missile defense in the Middle East.

These people believed that no Iranian missiles could possibly get through and instead of accepting they were misled they're shooting the messenger

You're plainly misinformed. Both the USA and Israel running low on munitions has been all over the media for months.

I live in Israel. There is fake news being spread about Tel Aviv being destroyed and Israel being hit hard. This is absolutely false. The volume of rockets is way lower than the 12 Day War. In fact, I even do the irresponsible thing of not even going to the bomb shelter when the odd siren rings out.

There was a decision made by the security establishment not to allow reporting on Iranian missile hits in order to make it harder for the Iranians to do BDA.