An Israeli raid led to the killing of five Palestinian journalists outside a hospital In the Gaza Strip Early Thursday, overnight, the Ministry of Health said. The Israeli army said all five were activists posing as journalists.
The strike hit a car outside Al Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central part of the area. The journalists worked for the local Al-Quds Al-Youm news channel, a television channel affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement.
Islamic Jihad is a smaller, more extreme ally of Hamas, and participated in its October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which ignited the conflict. The Israeli military identified four of the men as militant propaganda promoters, and said intelligence, including a list of Islamic Jihad activists found by soldiers in Gaza, confirmed that all five belonged to the group.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian armed groups operate political, media, and charitable operations in addition to their armed wings.
Associated Press footage showed the burned-out shell of the truck, with press marks still visible on the back doors. A number of young people attended the funeral outside the hospital, many of them sobbing. The bodies were all wrapped in white shrouds, with blue pressure vests wrapped over them.
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The Committee to Protect Journalists says that more than 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the beginning of the conflict. Israel did not allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza except with a military presence.
Israel banned the Al Jazeera Arabic network It accused six of its correspondents in Gaza Of being extremists. The Qatar-based channel denies these accusations and accuses Israel of trying to silence its coverage of the conflict, which has largely focused on civilian casualties due to Israeli military operations.
Separately, the army said that a 35-year-old reservist soldier was killed during fighting in central Gaza at dawn on Thursday. 389 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation more than a year ago.
The conflict began when Hamas-led militants stormed the border in a surprise attack on nearby military bases and agricultural communities. They killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapped about 250. About 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, and at least a third of them are believed to be dead.
The Israeli air and ground attack led to the deaths of more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health. It says that more than half of the dead were women and children, but it did not mention the number of fighters among the dead. Israel says it killed more than 17,000 militants without providing evidence.
The attack caused widespread destruction and forced about 90 percent of the population of 2.3 million people to leave their homes. Hundreds of thousands are crowded into filthy camps along the coast. With little protection from the cold, wet winter.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
