According to Al Jazeera, two Palestinian journalists have been killed after their vehicle was targeted in an Israeli air strike.
Hamza Wael Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria, both video stringers for AFP and various news outlets, were fatally attacked while en route to fulfill their responsibilities for the channel in the Gaza Strip. Another freelance journalist, Hazem Rajab, sustained severe injuries in the incident.
The Israeli strike has been blamed by the health ministry in Hamas-run in Gaza, they also confirmed the deaths. Some witnesses stated that two rockets fired the car. One rocket hit the front of the car and the second rocket hit Hamza who’s sitting next to the driver.
“We later found the body parts. The ambulance then came and carried those who were in the car,” a witness told AFP.
The Israeli army told AFP that it had “struck a terrorist who operated an aircraft that posed a threat to IDF troops”, adding that it was “aware of the reports that during the strike, two other suspects who were in the same vehicle as the terrorist were also hit”.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the journalists’ deaths were an “unimaginable tragedy.”
“And that’s also been the case for… far too many innocent Palestinian men, women and children,” he said.
The AFP video displayed a gathering of individuals examining the severely damaged car, with blood stains on the road nearby. No additional destruction was evident in the area.
Al Jazeera issued a statement strongly announcing the Israeli occupation forces for their attack on the Palestinian journalists’ vehicle, accusing Israel of deliberately targeting journalists and infringing upon the principles of press freedom.
Wael al-Dahdouh, the father of Hamza, serves as the Gaza bureau chief for Al Jazeera. He was recently injured in an attack, following the loss of his wife and two other children during Israeli bombardment in the early stages of the conflict.
“Hamza was everything for me … while we are full of humanity they (Israel) are full of murder and hatred,” Dahdouh said on Al Jazeera television.
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