Five journalists among 20 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza hospital

GAZA CITY

Freelance journalist Mariam Dagga, 33, who had been working with the Associated Press and other outlets since the start of the Gaza war, poses for a portrait in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 14, 2024. She was among at least 19 people, including at least four journalists, killed Monday in an Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Gaza's civil defense agency updated that five journalists were among at least 20 people killed on Aug. 25 when Israeli strikes hit Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Earlier, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said, "the death toll is 20, including four journalists and one civil defense member,” after strikes hit Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

According to media watchdogs, around 200 journalists have been killed in nearly two years of war between Israel and Hamas.

A spokesperson for Qatar-based TV network Al Jazeera confirmed its photojournalist and cameraman Mohammad Salama was killed in the attack on the medical complex.

The three others worked with some Palestinian and international outlets, according to AFP journalists.

Associated Press said Mariam Dagga was a freelancer for the news agency but was not on an assignment with the media outlet when she was killed.

Reuters said that one of the journalists killed and one of those injured were contractors for the news agency.

Palestinians rushed to help the victims, carrying bloodied bodies and severed body parts into the medical complex. One body could be seen dangling from the top floor of the targeted building as a man screamed below.

A woman wearing medical scrubs and a white coat was among the injured, carried into the hospital on a stretcher with a heavily bandaged leg and blood all over her clothes.

Before the latest killings, media advocacy groups the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders said around 200 journalists had been killed in the Gaza war.

Earlier this month, four Al Jazeera staff and two freelancers were killed in an Israeli air strike outside Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, prompting widespread condemnation.

The Israeli military alleged that Anas al-Sharif, a prominent Al Jazeera correspondent killed in the strike -- headed a Hamas "terrorist cell" and was "responsible for advancing rocket attacks" against Israelis.

The CPJ slammed that strike, saying journalists should never be targeted in war.

"Journalists are civilians. They must never be targeted in war. And to do so is a war crime," Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the CPJ, told AFP at the time.

Other NGOs and world powers also voiced shock at the Israeli strike.

 UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement that journalists and hospitals should never be targeted.

"The killing of journalists in Gaza should shock the world, not into stunned silence but into action, demanding accountability and justice."

The head of the UN's agency for Palestinian affairs UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, described the strike as "silencing the last remaining voices reporting about children dying silently amid famine," in a post on X.

Questioned by reporters at the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump said he had not yet received news of the strike but added: "I'm not happy about it. I don't want to see it."

He said, "at the same time, we have to end that whole nightmare" in Gaza, where militant group Hamas is holding hostages seized in Israel.

 In Israel's staunch European ally Germany, the foreign ministry said it was "shocked by the killing of several journalists, rescue workers, and other civilians" in the Nasser Hospital strike.

"This attack must be investigated," the ministry said on X, also calling on Israel to "allow immediate independent foreign media access and afford protection for journalists operating in Gaza".

 U.K. foreign minister David Lammy said he was "horrified" by the hospital strike.

"Civilians, healthcare workers and journalists must be protected. We need an immediate ceasefire," Lammy wrote on X.

 In Qatar, which has been trying to mediate a halt to the fighting in Gaza, the foreign ministry condemned the strike as "a new episode in the ongoing series of heinous crimes" by Israel.

"The occupation's approach of targeting journalists and relief and medical workers requires urgent and decisive international action to provide the necessary protection for civilians and ensure that the perpetrators of these atrocities do not escape punishment," it said in a statement.

In Israel's fierce adversary Iran, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai condemned the hospital strike as a "brutal war crime, planned and perpetrated by the Zionist regime as part of a plan for the genocide of the Palestinians."

He demanded the United States be held to account as "complicit" for supporting Israel.

Medical aid charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was "heartbroken" by the death in the strike of a freelance photographer who had previously worked for it, Mariam Abu Dagga.

"As Israel continues to shun international law, the only witnesses of their genocidal campaign are deliberately being targeted. It must stop now," it said.

 The Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem called for an "immediate explanation" from the Israeli military and called for it "to halt its abhorrent practice of targeting journalists."