An Israeli airstrike on a tent used by local media in southern Gaza has killed one Palestinian journalist and wounded nine others, Reuters reported.
The tent was housed inside a compound of a hospital in Khan Younis.
Helmy al-Faqawi worked with a local media network Palestine TV, according to Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. His death has raised the number of journalists killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza to more than 210 since October 2023, as per records reportedly maintained by the journalists’ syndicate.
The Palestinian foreign ministry in Ramallah called al-Faqawi’s death an act of “extrajudicial killing”.
Israel’s war on Gaza has been the deadliest conflict for media workers ever recorded, a report published last week by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs’ Costs of War project found. Killing 232 journalists, the strikes have left more media persons dead than both world wars, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia and the United States war in Afghanistan combined, the report said.
Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists has denounced Israel’s “targeted airstrike” and has called on the international community to act.
“CPJ calls on authorities to allow the injured, some of whom have sustained severe burns, to be evacuated immediately for treatment and to stop attacking Gaza’s already devastated press corps,” the press body said in a statement.
Among those injured in the strike that killed Al-Faqawi was Hassan Aslih, who Israel claimed was a Hamas member and a “terrorist” operating as a journalist. Hamas denied the claim and termed Israel’s accusations as false.
According to Middle East Eye, another journalist Ahmed Mansour, who was engulfed by the blaze in the airstrike has died of severe burns.
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