Separate Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have killed two media workers, including an Al Jazeera journalist.
Hossam Shabat, a journalist for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed in northern Gaza on Monday. Witnesses told the network that his car was targeted in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya.
Earlier, the Israeli army killed journalist Mohammad Mansour, who worked for Palestine Today, in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Reporting from Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said it is been “another bloody day” in the Palestinian enclave.
He said that Mansour was targeted by Israel “in his house in the city of Khan Younis alongside his wife and his son” without any prior warning.
Describing the Israeli attack which killed Shabat, he said: “Hossam, a 23-year-old Palestinian journalist, had been previously wounded in an Israeli attack, but he insisted on continuing news reporting in Gaza.…the Israeli military targeted his vehicle before any prior warning.”
At least 208 journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza.
The Government Media Office in Gaza said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation.”
“We call on the International Federation of Journalists, the Arab Journalists Union, and all journalistic bodies worldwide to condemn these systematic crimes against Palestinian journalists and media professionals in Gaza, he media office said in a statement.
“We hold the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and the countries participating in the genocide, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, fully responsible for committing this heinous crime,” it added.
Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists, has condemned the killing by Israel of Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat.
Ginsberg said that CPJ had spoken to Shabat for its own reports on the news void developing in northern Gaza because of Israel’s war. Shabat is one of six Al Jazeera journalists accused by the Israeli military of being “militants”, she noted.
“That’s a pattern that we have seen repeatedly both in the current war and in previous ones as well,” she said. “And now he appears to have been deliberately targeted on a direct hit on his vehicle”.
“The deliberate and targeted killing of a journalist, of a civilian, is a war crime,” Ginsberg added, noting that CPJ has been investigating several cases in which Israel appears to have deliberately targeted a journalist, knowing them to be a media worker.
“That would amount to a war crime. Journalists and civilians must never be targeted”, she added.
The death toll from Israeli bombardment throughout Monday in the besieged Gaza Strip now stands at 51, medical sources have told Al Jazeera.
The number of fatalities is likely to rise as incessant attacks continue in the north and south of the Palestinian enclave.
Gaza’s Health Ministry has said at least 50,082 Palestinians are confirmed dead and 113,408 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza.
Gaza’s Government Media Office also updated its death toll on Monday to more than 61,700, saying thousands of Palestinians missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
