An Israeli airstrike on a press broadcasting van killed five Palestinian journalists working in Gaza, according to a media report from the area on Thursday.
Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, citing a reporter in Gaza, reported that journalists from the Palestinian broadcaster Al-Quds Today were working near a hospital at the refugee camp of Nuseirat in the centre of the sealed-off coastal strip when their marked press van was hit.
Israel’s military said only that it had carried out a “targeted” overnight strike on “a vehicle containing a squad of terrorists from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in the Nuseirat area.”
The Israeli statement on X did not mention journalists or casualties, but said that numerous measures were taken to limit the dangers to civilians. Neither the information provided by Al Jazeera nor that of the Israeli military could be independently verified.
Israeli strikes have made Gaza the world’s deadliest place to work as a journalist, with a third of this year’s killings of media workers taking place in the war-torn Palestinian region, according to a December report by Reporters Without Borders.
Prior to this attack, at least 141 journalists had been killed in the Israel-Gaza war since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, according to the US non-profit organization Committee to Protect Journalists.
Palestinians inspect Al-Quds Today channel television broadcast vehicle, after it was destroyed by an Israeli air strike near Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Naaman Omar/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
