A Palestinian writer, poet and journalist was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to his family, bringing to 220 the total number of journalists killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the October 7, 2023.
Mohammad Hijazi was among nearly 90 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks across the besieged territory over the past 24 hours, according to a statement released Sunday by Gaza’s health ministry.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the Jabalia camp since Israel imposed a military siege on northern Gaza on October 5 and intensified bombings, forcing thousands to flee. Israel has even blocked humanitarian groups from providing basic food supplies to the region.
“I don’t know if I will write to you again. I keep what I wrote and write. Maybe it will come to light one day. I refuse a cheap death. I curse the murderer,” Hijazi wrote on Facebook in August last year.
“In this bottom finally reached, let us arm ourselves with patience and prayer, and count the days that we have lived as a historical achievement, while awaiting what comes with a broken heart, dull eye, head held high, and a spirit who fights to the end of the road.
It was not immediately clear whether Hijazi worked for a specific media organization at the time of his death.
Since the start of its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 220 journalists and media workers, including Hijazi.
The Health Ministry reported Sunday that at least 88 Palestinians were killed and 208 others injured in Gaza over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, another baby has frozen to death in Gaza as displaced Palestinians lack warm clothing and are forced to live in tents that offer little protection from the elements.
The child’s mother told Tel Aviv Tribune that her baby, Yousef, was born healthy, but was the eighth child to die in Gaza in recent days due to the cold.
“They didn’t give a single moment to feel happy with my baby,” she said. “He was sleeping next to me and in the morning I found him frozen and dead. I don’t know what to say. No one can feel my misery. No one in the world can understand our catastrophic situation.
These latest deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza to at least 45,805 since October 2023, while around 109,064 have been injured.
Among those killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza on Sunday were three Palestinians who lived in a tent in Deir el-Balah, according to Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from central Gaza.
A family of 15 was also buried under rubble northwest of Gaza City following another strike, Mahmoud reported.
“The Palestinian Civil Defense is doing its best to remove the bodies from the rubble, but has only evicted four family members,” he said.
“It is estimated that there are at least 15 family members under the three-story building that was razed.
“These repeated attacks – deliberate against families – continue to increase, causing more tragedies among Palestinians. »
“I refuse to die cheaply…I curse the killer.”
This morning, writer and journalist Mohamed Hijazi, the author of these remarks, was killed by the Israeli army in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza. #GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/LWsCak8IPr
— Ramy Abdu | رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) January 5, 2025
Over the past three days, Israeli forces have killed more than 200 people in Gaza, Mahmoud noted.
The last remaining hospitals in Gaza are now overwhelmed, he added.
At the emergency department of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, many people remained on the floor and others were waiting to be admitted to the operating room, Mahmoud said.
“When it’s their turn, it’s too late: they’ve already bled to death. (Many) burns are very serious and no painkillers are available in the hospital,” he said.
“There is a silent death happening. In recent weeks, because of the ongoing attacks, people are dying quietly due to the lack of medical equipment.”
On Sunday, the Israeli army claimed to have struck more than 100 “terrorist targets” in the Gaza Strip over the past two days. Several of the strikes targeted sites from which Palestinian fighters fired projectiles into Israel in recent days, the army said.
The latest violence in Gaza comes as indirect negotiations for a deal to release captives resume in Qatar.
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been working for months to find an agreement to end the war and obtain the release of dozens of captives still held in Gaza.
Israel has arrested more than 10,000 Palestinians since the start of its devastating war, which has drawn global condemnation. Human rights groups have called the Israeli military offensive a genocide, while the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ highest court, declared in March 2024 that the Israeli operation amounted to “plausibly” genocide.
Separately, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant.