Five journalists, including Tel Aviv Tribune photographer Mohammad Salama, are one of 20 people killed during an Israeli attack on the Nasser medical complex in southern Gaza, according to the Enclave Ministry of Health.
The ministry said on Monday that the victims had been killed on the fourth floor of the hospital in a double whirlwind strike – a missile hit first, then another moment later when the rescue teams arrived.
The people killed also included Hussam Al-Masri, who worked as a photojournalist for the Reuters news agency; Mariam Abu Daqqa, who worked as a journalist with several media, including independent Arabic and the Associated Press news agency; And journalist Moaz Abu Taha, according to the Gaza government media office.
A fifth journalist Ahmed Abu Aziz, who worked for the Feed Network network and other media, died of his injuries, according to the media office press release.
“Journalist colleagues were martyred when the Israeli occupation committed a horrible crime by bombing a group of journalists who were on a media coverage at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, and many martyrs were victims of this crime,” said the media office in a statement.
“We hold the Israeli occupation, the American administration and the countries participating in the crime of the genocide such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France entirely responsible for committing these odious brutal crimes.”
Reuters reported that their live video flow from the hospital, which was operated by the al-Masri cameraman, suddenly closed at the time of the initial strike.
‘Bury the truth’
Tel Aviv Tribune condemned the attack as “a clear intention to bury the truth”.
“The blood of our martyred journalists in Gaza has not yet dried up before the Israeli occupation forces committed another crime against the cameraman of Tel Aviv Tribune Mohammed Salama, as well as three other photojournalists,” the network said in a statement.
“Despite the incessant targeting, Tel Aviv Tribune remains resolved in the live coverage of the Israeli genocide in Gaza in the last 23 months, the occupation authorities prohibiting international media from entering the war.”
Salama married another Palestinian journalist, Hala Asfour, last year, in the middle of the current genocidal war.
Abu Daqqa, on the other hand, leaves behind a 12 -year -old son, who was evacuated from Gaza earlier in the war, according to the editor -in -chief of AP, Abby Sewell.
“She was a real hero, like all our Gaza Palestinian colleagues,” said Sewell in an article on X.
The journalists’ killings are barely two weeks after the famous journalist from Tel Aviv Tribune Anas Al-Sharif was killed with four of his media colleagues in front of the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Israel said that she had targeted Anas, who had become Gaza’s voice for her vast enclave relationships – who house more than two million people.
The attack increases the number of deaths of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 to at least 273, according to a Tally Tel Aviv Tribune.
In addition to the four journalists killed, Hatem Khaled, a photojournalist working for Reuters, was also part of the injured, the agency confirmed. Khaled largely documented the war in Gaza for Reuters.
Israel published a statement saying that she had led “a strike in the Nasser Hospital”, without explaining the objective or target of the attack. The short statement, published on the social networks of the army, says that the army “does not target journalists as such”.
More journalists killed in Gaza than in any other major conflict
The Khoudary, from Tel Aviv Tribune, said that Israel has constantly targeted Palestinian journalists throughout the conflict.
“How many times are we going to continue to report on the murder of our colleagues or the murder of other journalists working with Tel Aviv Tribune and other media?” Asked Khoudary.
“I am one of the Palestinian journalists who report hospitals. We are in a two-year war where we have been deprived of electricity and the Internet, so Palestinian journalists use these services in hospitals to continue reporting reports,” said Khoudary, reporting Deir El-Balah in the center of Gaza.
Palestinian journalists also make hospitals their base to follow stories of injured Palestinians, those confronted with malnutrition and all those killed, she added.
Mohamed Elmasry, professor of studies on the media at the Doha Institute for Higher Studies, says that Israel learned that he can “do almost everything he wants” without repercussions during the Gaza War.
“If there is something that Israel has learned in the last 23 months, it is that he can almost do what he wants and get away with it,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune, referring to the targeting attacks and killing paramedical paramedics, humanitarian workers and journalists.
“All they have (the army of Israel) had to make is to go out with a declaration to refuse it, to divert it or to blame Hamas,” said Elmasry. “We will see what they say about it (last attack on the Nasser Hospital).
Rights defense groups have succeeded in condemning the targeting by Israel of journalists in Gaza, where journalists are faced with more danger than everywhere else in the world.
“No conflict in modern history has seen a higher number of journalists killed than Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” said Amnesty International.
Several hospitals have been struck or attacked through the strip since the start of the war, Israel saying that the fighters worked from the interior of medical facilities without providing evidence. Israeli complaints have never been supported by evidence.
Israel was accused of mistreatment during its 22 months of brutal war against Gaza, killing more than 62,000 people, or more than half of women and children. Netanyahu and his former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant received arrest mandates against war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
