Al Jazeera said Sunday two journalists in Gaza were killed by an Israeli air strike that they claimed was targeted. The Israeli army acknowledged the strike, but said it was targeting a "terrorist".
Hamza Al Dahdouh, a journalist and camera operator for Al Jazeera, and Mustafa Thuraya, a freelance video journalist who worked with Agence France Press (AFP) and other international media, were killed Sunday by an Israeli drone strike on their car near the southern Gaza city of Rafah, according to Al Jazeera.
A third freelancer, Hazem Rajab, was wounded in the attack.
The journalists had been filming the aftermath of a strike on a house in Rafah, and their car was hit when they were on the way back, according to AFP correspondents.
Deliberate attack?
Al Jazeera said the attack had targeted the journalists.
Al-Dahdouh was the son of its television station’s chief correspondent in Gaza, Wael Al-Dahdouh, whose wife, daughter, another son and grandson were killed in an Israeli air strike in November, and who was wounded in another air strike in December.
"The assassination of his son Hamza in January 2024 confirms without a doubt the Israeli forces’ determination continue these brutal attacks against journalists and their families, aiming to discourage them from performing their mission," the Qatar-based media network said in a statement.
The Israeli military said in a statement that an IDF aircraft had struck a “terrorist who operated an aircraft that posed a threat to IDF troops", and acknowledged that “two other suspects who were in the same vehicle as the terrorist were also hit".
In a statement on 16 December, after the death of another Al Jazeera journalist in Gaza, the army said it “has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists".
Calls for investigation
Wael Al-Dahdouh said after Sunday’s strike that killed his son that he and other journalists would continue working in Gaza.
"The world should see with two eyes, not with an Israeli eye. They should see everything happening to the Palestinian people," Dahdouh said.
"We vigorously condemn all attacks against journalists doing their jobs and it is essential we have a clear explanation as to what happened," AFP's global news director Phil Chetwynd said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for an independent investigation into the deaths.
“Those behind their deaths must be held accountable,” said CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour.
“The continuous killings of journalists and their family members by Israeli army fire must end: journalists are civilians, not targets.”
As of Saturday, the watchdog had recorded the deaths of 77 journalists and media workers since the start of the war on 7 October –70 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese.
(with newswires)
