Updated at 10.05 am PT with latest death toll and NBC denial of connection… Double-tap Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Monday killed at least 20 people, including five journalists, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement.
The dead media professionals were named as Hussam al-Masri, a cameraman working for Reuters News Agency; Mohammed Salama, a photojournalist with Al Jazeera; Mariam Abu Daqqa (aka Mariam Dagga), a journalist working with several media outlets including Associated Press, and Moaz Abu Taha, who was initially reported as working for NBC, but the network has denied any connection in an email to Deadline.
A fifth media professional – freelance journalist Ahmed Abu Aziz, who contributed to Quds Feed – was also announced as having died in the strikes later on in the day.
Journalist Jamal Baddah from Palestine Today TV; photographer Hatem Khaled, a Reuters contractor, and Mohammed Fayeq, a freelance photographer, were also reported as having been injured in the attack, in an update issued by New York-based Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ).
“Israel killed at least five journalists in Nasser Hospital on Monday morning. Israel’s broadcasted killing of journalists in Gaza continues while the world watches and fails to act firmly on the most horrific attacks the press has ever faced in recent history,” said CPJ’s Regional Director Sara Qudah. “These murders must end now. The perpetrators must no longer be allowed to act with impunity.”
The Gaza Health Ministry reported earlier that there had been two strikes on the Nasser Hospital. The first had targeted the fourth floor of the hospital, and was followed by a second strike which hit the same location as first responders rushed to recover the injured and dead, and journalists followed close behind to capture what had happened.
Reuters confirmed Al-Masri’s death and Khaled’s injuries in a statement.
“We are devastated to learn that cameraman Hussam al-Masri, a contractor for Reuters, was killed this morning in Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in Gaza. Moaz Abu Taha, a freelance journalist whose work had been occasionally published by Reuters, was also killed, and photographer Hatem Khaled, a Reuters contractor, was wounded.”
“We are urgently seeking more information and have asked authorities in Gaza and Israel to help us get urgent medical assistance for Hatem,” the spokesperson added
Female photographer Abu Daqqa, who is among the dead, had won renown and the moniker “the adventurer” for her work documenting the impact of Israel’s military campaign and occupation of the Gaza Strip on children and civilian life.
The Israeli army later confirmed it struck the area of Nasser hospital in Gaza and said it regretted “any harm to uninvolved individuals” and that “it does not target journalists as such”.
The deaths come amid growing condemnation over the number of Palestinian journalists and media workers killed, injured or declared missing since the beginning of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, sparked by the Hamas-led October 7 terror attacks.
It has also added fuel to suggestions that Israel is deliberately targeting media workers to prevent them from documenting events on the ground in Gaza.
Figures released by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) on August 18, stated that at least 212 Palestinian journalists and media workers had been killed.
Monday’s deaths come just two weeks after Israeli forces killed five Al-Jazeera staff in an attack on a tent housing journalists located outside Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
They included celebrated Gaza journalist Anas al-Sharif alongside correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Moamen Aliwa, and driver Mohammed Noufal.
Israel claimed that al-Sharif, who was one of Gaza’s most famous journalists, was a Hamas member posing as a journalist. This claim has been refuted by Al-Jazeera and a number of other media orgs.
A group of Democrat senators led by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who is Jewish, wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on August 22 saying Israel had not provided “convincing evidence” to back up its claim of al-Sharif’s Hamas membership.
“The recent targeted Israeli strike on a group of journalists and media workers, which killed six journalists, including well-known Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, is just one example of attacks on reporters in Gaza and part of a pattern of violence that has silenced the voices of far too many Gazan journalists,” wrote the senators in their statement.
Israeli news website +972 reported in August that Israeli military had create a special unit, called the Legitimization Cell, tasked with gathering intelligence that can bolster Israel’s image in the international media as well as uncover links between journalists and Hamas so as to make them legitimate targets.
