An Israeli air attack on a media tent in Gaza has killed at least two people.
The bombing near the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis early on Monday also wounded several other reporters, according to local media. The attack was just the latest to result in the casualties of journalists, with Israel having been accused of deliberately targeting the press during its war in the enclave.
The strike on the tent outside the hospital in southern Gaza at about 2am set it ablaze, killing journalist Helmi al-Faqawi as well as a man named as Yousef al-Khazindar, according to Palestine’s Wafa news agency.
Footage shared online by the Quds News Network showed the tent on fire. Some people in a crowd gathered outside attempted to extinguish the flames.
Reports said that nine people, six of them journalists, were injured, “some seriously”, in the attack.
The Quds News Network showed footage of journalists Hassan Eslaih and Ihab al-Bardini on hospital beds, the latter “struck by shrapnel in the head, which exited through his eye”.
Journalist Ahmad Mansour was reportedly fighting for his life after suffering “severe burns”.
Israeli attacks on Gaza on Monday morning killed at least 13 people, according to medical sources cited by Al Jazeera Arabic.
The network reported two people were killed in the strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp and three others in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City.
Wafa reported that two people were killed west of Deir el-Balah and another in the al-Jurun area north of Gaza City.
Deadliest war for journalists
The attack on the media tent came a day after journalist Islam Meqdad was killed along with her husband and child, increasing the casualties reported among media representatives in Gaza.
The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs has said Israel’s war on Gaza is now the deadliest ever for media workers, according to its Costs of War project.
The United States-based think tank’s report released last week stated that Israeli forces have killed 232 journalists and media workers since the war in the enclave began following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel.
On average, 13 reporters and media workers have been killed every week in the bombardment.
It is unclear, the think tank continued, how many journalists in Gaza have been specifically targeted and “how many were simply the victims, like tens of thousands of fellow civilians, of Israel’s bombardment”.
However, it cited the documentation by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) of 35 cases to the end of 2024 in which the military likely targeted and killed journalists because of their work.
Citing the Costs of War study, journalist Antony Lowenstein told Al Jazeera that Israel is engaged in “deliberate targeting of journalists” and that the number of media workers killed in the enclave is now “greater than that of all conflicts in the last 100 years combined”.
