Palestinian TV says Israeli strike kills 5 journalists in Gaza

A Palestinian TV channel said five of its journalists were killed Thursday in an Israeli strike on their vehicle in Gaza, with Israel’s military claimed it had targeted a “terrorist cell”.

A missile hit the journalists’ broadcast truck as it was parked in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to a statement from their employer, Al-Quds Today.

It is affiliated with Islamic Jihad, whose militants have fought alongside Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The channel identified the five staffers as Faisal Abu Al-Qumsan, Ayman Al-Jadi, Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed Al-Lada’a.

They were killed “while performing their journalistic and humanitarian duty”, the statement said.

“We affirm our commitment to continue our resistant media message,” it added.

The Israeli military claimed in its own statement that it had conducted “a precise strike on a vehicle with an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell inside in the area of Nuseirat”.

According to witnesses in Nuseirat, a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft hit the broadcast vehicle, which was parked outside Al-Awda Hospital, setting the vehicle on fire and killing those inside.

The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East arm said the organisation was “devastated by the reports that five journalists and media workers were killed inside their broadcasting vehicle by an Israeli strike”.

“Journalists are civilians and must always be protected,” it added in a statement on social media.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said last week that more than 190 journalists had been killed and at least 400 injured since the start of the war in Gaza after Hamas-led October 7 attack last year, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 45,361 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.