A funeral ceremony is held for Palestine TV correspondent Mohammed Abu Hatab, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis in November 2023 (File photo)
Khan Yunis, May 19 (RHC)-- Israel's massacre of five journalists in Gaza during one day has drawn international condemnation.
At least five more Palestinian journalists were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, as the regime keeps targeting media people covering its crimes in the strip.
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says Israel’s latest “simultaneous deliberate” strikes against Palestinian journalists are part of “its ongoing persecution and killing” of media members.
Hamas named the slain journalists as Aziz al-Hajjar, Nour Qandil, Abdul Rahman al-Abadlah, Khaled Abu Saif, and Ahmed al-Zinati.
“Their homes and tents were bombed at dawn today, leading to their martyrdom, along with their children and families, in a complex crime that embodies the brutality of this fascist entity,” the group said in a statement. “It is reprehensible that the world remains powerless to stop the unprecedented war crimes being committed for months on live television against innocent civilians.”
Separately, the Palestinian Journalists Protection Center (PJPC) strongly condemned the killing of the five Palestinian journalists in separate attacks on Sunday by the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip.
The PJPC affirmed that these crimes reflect a systematic pattern of targeting media crews in blatant violation of international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks on journalists as civilians with special protections during armed conflict. The center called for an urgent and independent international investigation into these crimes and for holding the leaders of the occupation accountable for issuing kill orders.
It also urged the international community and all human rights and media institutions to act immediately to protect Palestinian journalists and ensure that perpetrators of violations against them are brought to justice.
The PJPC emphasized that what is happening in Gaza represents one of the deadliest waves of mass killings of journalists in modern history.
The center also censured suspicious international silence and complicity from some parties, who are turning a blind eye to these crimes. According to the center’s monitoring, the journalists were martyred in airstrikes that targeted their homes or areas of displacement.
Journalist Al-Abadleh was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Al-Qarara in southern Gaza, while journalist al-Hijjar was martyred alongside his wife and children in a violent bombing in Be’er Al-Na’ja, northern Gaza.
Journalist Qandeel, her husband Khaled Abu Saif, and their young daughter were killed in an airstrike that hit their home in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza.
In Sanabel camp near the Kuwaiti field hospital west of Khan Younis, journalist al-Zeinati, his wife Nour Al-Madhoun, and their two sons Mohammad and Khaled were killed when an airstrike hit their tent shelter.
This brings the number of Palestinian journalists killed since the start of the Israeli assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023, to approximately 230 journalists, many of whom were killed with their families in their homes or while reporting on the ground.
The killing has turned the month of May, which marks World Press Freedom Day, into a graveyard for journalists in Gaza. At least 125 Palestinians, including many children, fell victim to the latest wave of strikes across the besieged strip.
The total death toll from the regime’s genocide since October 2023 has now exceeded 53,300, with over 121,000 others wounded.
[ SOURCE: PRESS TV and NEWS AGENCIES ]
